In this 3-act activity, students look for a pattern to count these cans. Canstruction is an annual event that takes place just before Thanksgiving in cities throughout the world to raise money and gather food for local food banks.
Canstruction
Tag: MP3
Ghost Whisperer
As the Halloween season begins, let your students play a spooky game. How does this work? Students can play this game online at Ghost Whisperer Crystal Ball and then Figure out why it works. Construct viable arguments Critique the work of others…
How Much Halloween Candy Will You Collect?
Students consider how to determine the best candy haul prediction. The math ideas of measurement error and percent error are introduced. Students then predict their own Halloween candy collections numbers and compare their predictions to their actual haul using measurement and percent error.
Fall Equinox, 2019
Monday, September 23, 2019 at 7:50 UTC (which is the same as 3:50 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 travel through the…
Does it pay to get educated?
Updated! Why should students do well in school, graduate high school, or go on to college? In this activity median earnings by various education levels are explored. Students compare the earnings of a non-high school grad with workers who graduated…
Bears Ears revisited
There is some beautiful land in Utah that was changed last year from federally protected land to Utah overseen land. The buttes of Bears Ears (shown above) and the surrounding territory contain over 100,000 archaeological sites and are sacred land…
Greatest March Madness program
We are nearing the finale of this year’s March Madness tournament. Which NCAA teams must have the best basketball programs since they consistently do well in this tournament? Based on this data, which do you think is the greatest March…
How many lights should I buy for my tree?
Check out our Christmas Tree. We 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…
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.
“Wild Boars” soccer team rescue – Incredible
Can you imagine being stuck in the dark for such a long time? How do all of the numbers play out? In this activity, students get a chance to talk about the experience of this ordeal while calculating usual rates…
Now that LeBron James is becoming an L. A. Laker, will this company go broke?
Fanatics is an online sportswear retailer that has promised to accept jersey returns if your chosen player makes a team switch. In this activity student try to calculate how much this “Jersey Assurance” program will actually cost the company. This…
World Cup draw
This is part II of our reflections on the World Cup games. Part I, World Cup rankings, explained and let students practice with the formula and weighting that is used to establish each country’s team rank. This second activity deals with…
Prince Harry and Meghan Markel’s Royal Wedding
This weekend is the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markel. This will be quite an event and we can expect it to dominate the media. What have you heard about the event? What interests you? The mathematics in this…
Pizza party figuring
In this activity students decide how to divide 2 pizzas amongst 6 adults and 3 pizzas amongst 8 kids. Fractional pizza parts need to be drawn and considerations discussed about which fractions are greater. Students interpret a fraction as division…
Curling
Friction, score-keeping, trajectory and weirdness are the main concepts in this activity. Curling is not a well-understood sport but the science and strategy are easily understood and enjoyed. Let your students watch this video to get a feel for the…