
The Winter Olympics begins this week in Beijing.
Wikipedia had this schedule of events. We think that there is a lot of information missing and apparent in this graphic. What can you tell and what would you like to know?
Ask students whether they think a game played at home gives their team an advantage. If so, how much of an advantage? Enjoy the discussion first, then show them our graphic.
Students use the infographic to compare NFL team home and away wins. They consider the best home team, the best away team and decide if NFL teams really do seem to have a home field advantage.
Use our current data on Halloween spending in America to engage your students in an analysis of the ratios and percents of population, participation, and money spent in honor of October 31st. This activity takes kids through finding parts of wholes as well as ratio, percents and proportion problems.
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.
This activity is a investigation intended to get students and teachers to loosen up a little and appreciate how just considering a situation might lead you to a very reasonable approximation.
Too often students think that there is only one answer that is right and that the method for approaching that solution is also limited to the “correct” approach. Surely this fear of experimenting and guessing leads to math anxieties and the fear to reason and experiment.