On Thursday, June 21st, at 06:07 am EST, the Earth’s North Pole will be tilted as far towards the Sun as it will ever be in the year. This marks the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and…
The longest day
Tag: 7.SP
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…
Winter Olympics, PyeongChang: February 9 – 25
Scoring Ski jumping – The scoring rubric for each of the Olympic events is intended to eliminate the possibility of scoring bias from the judges. Let your students learn more about the scoring of one event and decide whether it seems fair…
The Olympic Torch trip in South Korea
On October 24, 2017, the Olympic flame was captured on Mount Olympus, Greece. (Lighting the Olympic Torch). That flame lit one of this year’s Olympic Torches and the Torch relay was begun on its way to the opening Winter Olympic…
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…
Scary costumes
Every year Americans spend lots of money on Halloween and Halloween costumes. Use our updated 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…
Perseids meteor showers coming soon
Catching a productive meteor shower can be a stunning experience. On the evenings and mornings of August 11th and 12th there is hope of a good show. A three-quarters moon will make the night sky too light to see the…
Who’s going back to school?
Updated! 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…
Tick time and Lyme disease
With the start of summer and wonderful outdoor activities, it might be good to examine the growth of Lyme disease occurrences in the United States. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has published maps for all of the…
Saint Patrick’s Day, March 17th
Green, green river – They’re doing it again. In Chicago, the local plumbers union “dye” the Chicago River emerald green. Students learn what PPM (parts per million) means and attempt to figure out how much dye is used to sufficiently color…
August meteor showers
Conditions will be favorable for excellent views of the Perseids meteor showers in early to mid-August. Let students read charts, analyze data, work with percent of moon visibility at each phase, and understand apparent magnitude in the night sky with…
Powerball jackpot continues to rise in value
One winner last night in New Jersey! Now the jackpot is back to ONLY 40 million. The Saturday night Powerball drawing is expected to have a winning Jackpot prize of $415,000,000. Examine compound probability to decide if playing Powerball is worth…