Now that the shopping season has begun, it's time to get the packages to your homes. Two big companies take care of a lot of that shipping. How do they manage that?
The mechanisms for these two shipping giants are huge. Did you ever wonder how they pull it off? To me they both seem to do a great job. Is that consistently true. What are the numbers like?
(Teachers might start this lesson by asking kids to predict what percent of holiday gifts are delivered on time and what percent are not?)
Check out our Christmas Tree. We need to buy lights for the tree. Without calculating, guess how many feet of lights you will need. What information do you need to better estimate the number of feet of lights that you need? (Give students time to consider what info they have and what they need)
Activity: ChristmasTree.pdf
Students appreciate how their latitude effects the darkness of their late afternoon location as they study the earth's tilt and the logic of daylight hours. Is latitude the central angle of the Earth?
The activity: winter-solstice2019.pdf
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Start out this activity with: What do you notice? What do you wonder?
How many inches of snow produced that pile? How much snow in volume is on top of the car? How much could that snow weigh?
Students try to approximate the weight of the snow by using our snow water equivalent percents (SWE) and their own thoughts about how dense this snow might be. When they've calculated a weight or range of weights, we try to decide whether the car should have been flattened by all of that snow. Wicked fun! Is this even possible or was this picture photoshopped?
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That's a big roll of toilet paper! Why would anyone need such a big roll of toilet paper? How does it compare to Charmin's other toilet paper products? If this roll lasts for one month, how big a roll would I need to be able to last for one year? Why did Charmin make this product? Will it sell?
The activity: TheForeverRoll.pdf
Macy's new balloons - Students measure Macys's new balloons in handler-height, taxicab widths, stories tall, and bicycles long. 5.MD, 6.RP.A, 6.SP, 7.RP, 7.G.A, 7.G.B, 8.G
Not enough mashed potatoes - Use Brian's famous mashed potatoes recipe to practice changing decimals to fractions; calculating ingredient measure for various-sized Thanksgiving gatherings; have students explain their reasoning; and to have students figure out how many servings 7½ pounds of potatoes would make. 5.NF.6 , 5.NF.6 , 6.RP.1 , 6.RP.2 , 6. RP.3 , 7.RP.1
