If you try to predict how the games will play out by filling out a bracket, what are your chances of picking every game? How does the change from 64 to 65 to now, 68 teams in the field complicate things? How many brackets would you need to fill out to pick every possibility?
We have 3 Saint Patrick’s Day activities for your math class. How hard is it to find 4-leafed clovers, the nutritional values of a Shamrock Shake, and measuring parts per million (ppm) of dyeing the Chicago River green.
This is the first of several activities about March Madness. Figuring percents, bar graphs, trends, big numbers, and probability.
Will you wake up and go to sleep earlier or later on that Sunday?
What kind of chart or picture could you draw to help you compare before and after daylight savings time?
Will your Sunday seem longer or shorter?
Is daylight savings time still useful?
Which should we order and why? Two 12-inch pizzas or one 18-inch pizza? Which will give you more pizza? More crust? Which is the better deal?
The distribution of a population’s age and gender data can tell you a lot about a society’s history, current situation, and future. What do you see happening here? The activity: PopulationGraphics.pdf
How much are US presidents paid? Step graph. Fair?
Mardi Gras, meaning, parades, beads, value, cost, reuse, environment.
Have a heart Canstruction – Students use reasoning and approximation to analyze the number of cans of food contained in this one giant heart. Consider starting out the activity by showing students the picture of the heart and doing a see…
On February 6th, Turkey and Syria were hit with a powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake. What does a 7.8 magnitude earthquake imply? What’s a seismometer? What is the amplitude of a seismograph and what does it mean? Use our Richter scale activity to introduce your students to logarithmic Richter magnitudes.
For Valentine’s Day, bake a cake. Students calculate base area or volume of cakes made from 2 cake pan sizes and observe how the volume of the cake changes with the increased pan size. This is an activity intended to…
How many dollars worth of sweetheart candies used to be sold each Valentine’s season? How much is one candy worth? After Valentine’s Day their price is reduced. How much are they worth then?
In this activity students study historical Super Bowl data to reflect on average (mean, median, and mode), losing scores, winning scores, and range of scores. They are asked to judge which of these central measurements seem the most meaningful and explain their reasoning.
How often does Punxsutawney Phil get it right? Relative frequency! A cute animal will make your students smile as they calculate the relative frequency of Phil’s correct past predictions.
Recently the Mega millions’ jackpot was won in Maine at 1.35 billion dollars. Last year, someone won 2.04 billion dollars in Powerball. Students examine compound probability and decide whether playing Powerball or Mega millions is worth it.
