Jennifer Fairbanks from Hopkinton, MA sent us this picture of the cookies that she baked in 4 hours using 13 eggs and 5 cups of sugar. Do you see some math here?
Whole lot of cookies
Tag: MP3
World Cup 2022 – Qatar (2 activities)
The World Cup of Soccer begins November 20, 2022. We have two different activities involving the logic of setting up a fair draw and the number of matches that each team may have to play.
Inflation and the cost of gasoline
In 1980, a gallon of gas costs $1.22. Today’s prices are a lot higher. Is that because the price has gone up or because in 1980 you could buy a lot more with $1.22 than you can buy today?
April 15th happenings
We have 6 April 15th activities. The Boston Marathon, Where your tax money goes, Jackie Robinson, and Paul Revere’s ride.
Who has the greatest Men’s March Madness program?
The Kansas Jayhawks just won the finals of this year’s March Madness tournament. Which NCAA teams have had the best basketball programs over the years. Students decide which stats count towards the “Greatest March Madness Program”.
Spider-Man continues
How much did it cost to make?
How much will it gross?
Is the Spider-Man phenomena a guarantee for success?
How would you compare all of the Spider-Man movies?
Mystical Mathematical Mind Reader
The GHOST WHISPERER now has a replacement!!!! John Tranter of Transum Mathematics has created the Mythical Mathematical Mind Reader and we’ve updated our activity to accompany the fun.
Bowl by the hour or the game?
Students consider the posted pricing of this bowling alley. What must they consider when choosing how to pay? What do you expect will be the best deal? How do you know?
Will one roll be enough?
Students can use the man or the basket as a reference as they try to approximate the size of these gifts and how much wrapping paper will actually be needed. Approximation, surface area, reasoning explanation, and diagraming! An X-box is…
Wrapping presents on the diagonal
In this activity students determine if this method for minimizing wrapping paper is actually more efficient then the traditional method. For a hands on learning experiment, have students actually wrap a small rectangular prism using any available paper in both the traditional and diagonal methods. Then let them compare the two quantities of wrapping paper and decide which method uses less paper and by what percent.
End of Daylight Savings time confusion
In this activity students try to figure out how time settings will change as they move from place to place and what variables are involved in the daylight savings time shift. Day length? Latitude?
Fall Equinox 2021
Updated for 2021! Tuesday, September 22, 2021 at 19:21 UTC (which is the same as 3:21 am EST), will be the Autumnal Equinox. It is the time of year when the imaginary plane that passes through the Earth’s Equator would also…
How many athletes brought home no medal?
Probably most of the athletes that went to Tokyo didn’t win a Gold, Silver, or Bronze medal. We couldn’t find any numbers about these people. Can you figure it out from what we could find?
Ranked Choice Voting in NYC
New York City is still tallying its election results for a new Mayor. This year they tried Ranked Choice Voting. What does that mean? How does that work? What are the ramifications of this sort of voting? Do you think that this will be a fairer and more positive way of electing a Mayor? Students experiment with the technique of tallying the votes using our flow chart and make some observations and decisions about the process.
Peeps
This activity is a investigation intended to get students and teachers to loosen up a little and appreciate how just considering a situation might lead you to a very reasonable approximation.
Too often students think that there is only one answer that is right and that the method for approaching that solution is also limited to the “correct” approach. Surely this fear of experimenting and guessing leads to math anxieties and the fear to reason and experiment.