More for π Day! On a cold and snowy day in Boston, two chefs created a huge Key Lime pie to remind the frozen people of the Northeast how tasty and warm the Keys of Florida are. After you…
Huge Key Lime pie
Tag: 6.RP
How big of a crepe can you make?
At Costco you can buy this huge tub of nutella. It contains nearly 7 pounds of chocolaty-hazelnut spread. We use nutella to make banana/nutella crepes. How long will that tub last us? Is it too big and we will have…
Mardi Gras – Fat Tuesday
Tuesday, March 5, 2019, will be the day before Ash Wednesday and the start of the season of Lent. Mardi Gras is a last hoorah and is celebrated throughout the world with feasting, partying, and general indulgence. In New Orleans…
Which car should I buy?
Presidents Day is also about car sales. Should you buy a hybrid car or an electric car to save money? Students create equations for finding the break-even points of these vehicles by mileage and years of ownership. They then work…
Valentine’s Day (11 possibilities)
Parametric graphing, heart area, chocolate volume, making a heart-shaped cake, pie charts of holiday candy sales, how many cans in a can heart canstruction, where do all of those flowers come from, best deal on bagged candies, making a cardioid … Valentine everything!
Martin Luther King, Jr. (4 activities)
Data on the National Mall sites – Two data analysis activities about the National Mall. Who do we honor? – What people or events are included in the National Mall monuments? Students use fractions or percents to decide what they can notice…
Columbus’s progression across the Atlantic
The Niña Columbus Day is a bit of an enigma that used to be celebrated throughout all of the Americas. Indigenous people were not treated well by the European colonization that began with Columbus’s voyage. For that reason, many U.S.states…
Who’s going back to school?
In this investigation students calculate the percentage of the U.S. population (current and historically) that are enrolled in K-12 schools. They are asked to draw conclusions from these variations. Finally, they use their calculations to predict the number of enrolled…
Perseid meteor shower
Catching a productive meteor shower can be a stunning experience. On the evenings and mornings of August 11th and 12th there could be a very good show. A nearly new moon will leave the night sky dark. Depending on the…
That’s a big tomato!
These Aussi tomatoes (the tomato on the left of all of the tomatoes) are huge. How much do you guess one weighs? Can you figure it out?
Memorial Day 2018
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…
Mother’s Day is coming up
Mother’s Day by the numbers – Mother’s Day is right around the corner and this means big business for the greeting card and floral industries. Let your students practice averages, percents, and large numbers while they analyze the statistics on Mother’s…
Earth Day, 2018 – 12 activities
Sunday, April 22nd is Earth Day – There is so much to bring to your classroom to support recycling, conserving resources, studying climate change and protecting our planet. Have you seen more Monarch butterflies lately? – Students read charts, do a little research, and make observations…
Saint Patrick’s Day
Green, green river – They’re doing it again. In Chicago, the local plumbers union “dye” the Chicago River emerald green. Students learn the meaning of PPM (parts per million) and attempt to figure out how much dye is used to sufficiently…
Days are getting longer
What’s your guess? How fast are the number of daylight hours changing each day? Will the changes be dramatic or subtle? Students make guesses; compute how long, on average, the change in daylight hours should be; play with a cool…