It’s almost summer now

How much water do you have to drink? - In this activity student develop formulas for calculating their water needs, learn about the effects of too little water, and calculate what they should be consuming. 4.OA.B, 5.OA.B, 6.NS.B, 6.RP.A, 8.F.A, HSF.BF, HSA.CED, HSM

How much pee is in this pool? - A Canadian chemist, Xing-Fang Li, has found a marker for urine that chlorine doesn't disguise. In this activity, students calculate volume of several pools, change that cubic foot volume to gallons of pool water, and try to approximate how much urine is in each pool. 4.MD.C, 5.MD, 6.G.A, 6.RP.A, 7.RP.A, 7.G.B

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Giant beach towel

Beaches are starting to open again. Bring summertime smiles and hopes to your class with this activity.

Act One: Check out this beach towel!  What do you wonder? What would you like to know?

beach_towel

Towel project by Misael Soto.

Miami artist, Misael Soto, created this giant art project to make a statement about people sharing.

In the morning he brings sunscreen, snacks, drinks, and games to share and ... lays out his towel.

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Souvenirs and concessions

Brian has introduced systems of equations with easy, motivating problems that deal with the cost of stadium purchases for food and souvenirs. These systems of equations puzzles are so intuitive that very little support will be needed from the teacher.  

This is a good way to begin systems. Even students who are not yet ready to solve systems will find these problems solvable with just logic.

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Memorial Day 2023

This Monday, Americans will celebrate Memorial Day.  Who are we honoring?  How did the holiday come about?  Isn't Memorial Day usually on May 30th?

Students learn a little about the history of the holiday, analyze the possibilities and patterns for when it is celebrated and make observations about the incredible numbers of deaths that have been caused by war. While trying to make observations about the numbers, they can't help but appreciate the terrible cost of war and the gift that those that serve in the military have given to us and to our country.

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The 8th billion baby

How fast is the world's population growing? Will the world's population size increase indefinitely?  Are all countries' populations increasing at the same rate? What are some of the factors affecting this growth?

We have two activities:

For younger students: 8-billion-elementary.pdf

For middle and high school students: 8-billion-secondary.pdf

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Patterns in the binomial expansion, Pascal

Realizing that (X+Y)n can be expanded with the help of Pascal's Triangle offers some pretty and interesting math play.  We love to bring a little fun and beauty into our math classes and the end results are neat!  Here is the first of 3 activities using Pascal's coloring.

Pascal'sImages

This Binomial expansion activity could be used alone or coupled with our introductory Pascal activity.

 BinomialExpansion.pdf     Introduction&day1.pdf

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