Back to school spending is huge and students might not appreciate what it costs to send them back to, essentially, their job of learning. In this activity students decide what equipment and supplies are necessary, estimate how much that will…
I have to go to the bathroom pretty badly. I have to admit that I have been holding it in for a while. Finally! I see a bathroom sign! Wait … it is in kilometers? How far is that? Should…
Act One: Check out this beach towel! What do you wonder? What would you like to know? Miami artist, Misael Soto (pictured on the left below), created this giant art project to make a statement about people sharing territory at the beach.…
Can you tell from its opening weekend how much the new movie, Wonder Woman, might earn in theaters? This activity can be used anytime and is especially timely when there is a new blockbuster movie released. We’ve left blank spaces…
The fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie opened on Friday, May 26th. Your students might be looking forward to seeing this movie and motivated to understand the investment expenses and profit expectations. Our data and questions will help them judge this…
March Madness is the big 68 team college basketball tournament that takes over our TV viewing during the weekends of March. School and office friends are filling out brackets. Engage your students in percents as they get excited about March…
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…
Will we have a 29th of February this year? How can you tell? Students work with a flow chart to deduce what years are going to be leap years. They learn about the exact measurement of a solar year and…
Which holidays are associated with candy? For which of those holidays is the most candy is sold? What percents of annual candy sales does each holiday contribute? Consider using some independent think time, then small group discussion, then whole group discussion…
Clicking on the image above will show the heart larger in a new window. Canstruction® is an event hosted in more than 150 countries throughout the world to demonstrate “innovation, hunger relief and collaboration”. Canstruction has raised more than 40 million…
On October 16, 1995, perhaps a million black men gathered for the Million Man March on Washington. This was 32 years after Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his historic “I have a dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial to 250,000 civil…
On Wednesday, January 4, 2017, Earth will be as close as it gets to the Sun during its orbit. Shouldn’t that make this the warmest time of the year? In this activity students become familiar with the terms perihelion and aphelion as they calculate…
I have to wrap this box. In this problem based activity students first guess and then try to calculate whether they will have enough paper to wrap this present without taping pieces of wrapping paper together. …with this wrapping paper …
We’ve gotten used to believing what we read or see advertised. But sometimes the clerk doesn’t get the sales discount right or something seems a little off. Let students ponder this store menu and see if they can figure out…
Check out our Christmas Tree. You need to buy lights for the tree. Without calculating, guess how many feet of lights you will need.What information do you need to better estimate the number of feet of lights that you need?…
