What’s the big deal with our deficit? Do we actually borrow money to cover our debt? If we do, imagine the interest charges? Help your students (and their families) understand the meaning and repercussions…
So just print some more money!
Tag: MP8
Labor Day 2019
Updated! What is this holiday about? Are we celebrating the start of school? New cars? The end of summer? In this short activity, students learn about the intended meaning of Labor Day as they read about its origin. For the…
Get ready for Father’s Day
How long would it take to build this underground house and pool?
The building of this underground house and pool was presented by Cayote Person and his partner, Mark Lavins, on their youtube channel, “Brave Wilderness.” At BraveWilderness.com the business partners post animal and adventure films to promote education and conservation. Here…
Leaves are pretty but …
Brian has spent too much time thinking about his leaf raking. He’s worried about doing the job alone and about how long the job would take with different numbers of rakers. In this activity students see the inverse relationship between…
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…
Fantasy Football
In the midst of another NFL season, we introduce students to Fantasy Football. Students first calculate football points given touchdowns, yardage gains and interceptions. They are then challenged to generalize an equation that gives a player’s total fantasy points. Students solve…
Impress your parents at dinner
This activity is the first in our series on mental math tricks. Let your students develop their own individual way of mentally multiplying by 0.5, 5, 50, 500, and so on. We have a little practice and a requirement for…
Want to earn $150,000? – Mersenne prime search
What’s a Mersenne prime? How hard could it be to find the next one? Why are there only 50 known Mersenne primes? What’s with $150,000? The activity: NewMersennePrime.pdf
Measuring sea level
What does this gizmo do? We’ve given students a diagram of what the interior of this mechanism contains and asked them to try to decide what its purpose must be. Then we’ve given them the data that was collected from…
YUMMY food for Passover
Passover will begin this year at sundown on Monday, April 10th. Jewish families will gather to commemorate the exodus of the Children of Israel from slavery in Egypt. The celebration begins with a traditional meal, the Seder, where the story of…
Pascal coloring and modular math
This is the third and final activity in the Pascal’s Triangle series. In this activity students again have the opportunity to color as they investigate Pascal’s triangle and the patterns that it shows. The activity might be used first in…
Getting a new iPhone – which plan should I choose?
I want to get an iPhone8 and maybe change my service plan. Which of the above plans should I choose? Student pick one plan and consider the cost of the phone and plan over time. They make tables, graphs and equations. Consider…
It’s latke time
In my family it is traditional to eat latkes (Yiddish for potato pancakes) at this time of year. They are fried in a lot of oil and salted generously. My mom’s latkes were wonderful but they couldn’t have been good for…
Which is most expensive?
Who knew that creams for your face could be so expensive! I’m going to have to rethink what to buy for my mom. Which of these high priced cremes is most expensive? In this activity students observe some prices of…