In this activity students learn about the game; calculate the number of matches that must be played; and try to reason how to count the matches in a more abstract manner.
2023 World Cup Cricket
Tag: Data and Probability
Nobel Prizes
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?
Huge Alaskan Vegetables
The growing season in Alaska is short, but, farmers are able to grow 75 pound cabbages, 100 pound kales, and 1,000 pound pumpkins. How do they do that? Stnds calculate length of growing seasons and hours of sunlight to approximate how much one of these giants grows per hour. Unbelievable!
U. S. Open Tennis Tournament prizes have been awarded
Students ponder the amounts for various wins, they will work with patterns, use number sense, reasoning, and have the opportunity to model real-life situations with algebra.
The Moroccan Earthquake and the Richter scale
Friday evening, September 8th, a powerful 6.8 magnitude earthquake hit Morocco southwest of Marrakech.
What does a 6.8 magnitude earthquake mean? How powerful was that? What is a seismometer and a seismograph? What is the amplitude of a seismograph reading? Why did the quake happen in Morocco?
Jock tax 2023
In this activity students consider the remarkable differences in state taxes that high paid pro athletes have to pay. Students determine how much more money an athlete should be paid in a high tax state in order to offset the taxes.
Will sending you back to school this year cost a fortune?
In this activity students decide what equipment and supplies are necessary, estimate how much that will all cost, confer with classmates to refine their lists, and then research to find out more accurately how much it will probably cost to send them back to school. This activity could be used for students in upper elementary school all the way to high school. It offers an opportunity for kids to estimate, research, reason, calculate and communicate with each other.
Memorial Day 2023
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.
Patterns in the binomial expansion, Pascal
Realizing that (X+Y)n can be expanded with the help of Pascal’s Triangle offers some pretty and interesting math play. We love to bring a little fun and beauty into our math classes and the end results are neat! Here is…
Triple Crown hopefuls at the Preakness
Saturday, May 20th, will be the running of the Preakness Stakes thoroughbred horse race in Baltimore, Maryland. The Preakness is the second major race for 3-year old thoroughbreds to run in their effort to claim the Triple Crown of horse…
How hard it is to pick the perfect bracket?
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?
March Madness – Does seeding really matter?
Engage your students in percents as they get excited about March Madness. Is getting a higher seed really an advantage? Use 30 years of data to help determine for which seeds it makes sense to pick an upset.
Pi Day 2023 – 3/14
Iditarod 2023 – The Last Great Race on Earth
The Iditarod Dogsled Race will begin this year on Saturday, March 4th in Anchorage, Alaska. It is often called The Last Great Race on Earth because it is so long and grueling. Students do some rate, distance, and hardship comparisons to decide if…
Powerball, Mega Millions, and probability
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.