
It’s a good time to give students some authentic math on a topic they probably will be interested in … Starbucks beverages. We ask and answer a few questions in this activity. About how many drinks does Starbucks sell in…
Consumers in the U.S. spend a lot of money. In this activity we look at historical data to see if there are any patterns in our spending. How does our holiday spending show up in these graphs? What accounts for spikes or drops in spending? What patterns do you notice? Which patterns will likely continue and which patterns won’t?
Two activities. Vampire bats = We’ve given lots of interesting metric and customary unit facts and asked students to relate those sizes to more familiar objects. + Mosquito eating bats = Students compare a bat’s weight to how much he can consume in one night. They calculate how much they would need to eat to consume a comparable proportion of food.
The Nobel Prizes have just been awarded. Alfred Nobel was a chemist, engineer, inventor, and businessman. He left most of his fortune to endow 5 prizes for “those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind” in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace. How much money is awarded?
Two activities – Students calculate how large Columbus must have thought the circumference of the Earth was if he reached the East India when he landed in the Bahamas + history of who lived there. In the second activity, students use latitude and longitude to analyze the distances Columbus’s trip involved.