Illustrative Mathematics
How Many Leaves on a Tree?
This is great go-to activity for those spring or fall days when the weather beckons your geometry class outside. Learners start with a small tree, devising strategies to accurately estimate the leaf count. They must then tackle the...
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House Project
Make young mathematicians' dreams a reality with this fun drawing project. Given the task of designing their dream home, students create drawings and physical models that demonstrate their understanding of proportion and scale.
Poetry Society
Tiny by Mandy Coe
Introduce magic and imagination into your classroom with a poetry activity. Learners read the poem "Tiny" by Mandy Coe and use their magic tickets to visit any place they can think of! The final result is a poem describing where they...
National Gallery of Canada
Build a City of the Future!
Tap into your pupils' imagination by asking them to design futuristic, ideal cities. They must discuss and take scale and size into account, looking at some model pieces of art for inspiration and analysis. The final product for each...
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Stadiums in America
Let's play ball! A great springtime activity to learn about ratios. This activity challenges learners to draw stadiums to scale on standard letter paper and also on construction paper. This three-day lesson includes a pre-assessment...
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Lesson #2 ~ Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
You might love this lesson, or you might not. Basically, high school scientists read through a script in which someone interviews a physicist, a biologist, and a chemist in regard to their use of nanotechnology. The names of the involved...
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Housing Project
Find everything you need for a two-week home construction simulation project for your high school economics class. They come up with the plans for a custom home including the cost per square foot, interest rate, mortgage term, down...
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Probability Scale 0 to 1
Use a probability scale line to help introduce learners to odds and probability. They start by examining an example line, looking at where events would fall from 100% probability to 0%. Next, learners complete two of these on their own,...
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Music of Japan
My, how Japan has changed! From Hogaku to karaoke, this slide show provides an overview of the culture, instruments, and periods of transition through Japanese music. Here you will find 21 text-rich slides which are great for note taking.
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Our Solar System - Comparing Planetary Travel Distances
NASA presents a mini-unit on distances in our solar system. It incorporates scientific concepts of gravity, mass, density, and payload while your aspiring astronauts also employ mathematics skills. They calculate speed, they determine...
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Environmental Agents of Mathematics: Mathematics for Change
High schoolers analyze environmental science data using Math. They do research about renewable energy, gather data, create graphs and interpret their findings. Then the group presents their arguments persuasively using their findings to...
Math Can Take You Places
Picture This
Engage scholars in a ratio lesson that employs real-world scenarios. Learners will compare the length and width of pictures and use a table to identify ratio patterns. They watch "Math Can Take You Places" and discuss jobs that use math...
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Draw an Inch, Walk a Mile
Students work in small groups to solve the problems presented. The main project, mapping the classroom, use these discussions to collaborate in creating a tangible demonstration of their understanding.
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Scale Model of the Solar System
Young scientists gain a better understanding of space, the solar system and its vastness by creating a scale model. Students first need to calculate the distance between each of the nine planets according to the size of their scale. This...
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Footprints: Take a Step into Estimation
Compare sizes of student footprints with those of elephants and sauropod dinosaurs! Upper graders make estimations of the areas of irregular shapes; young scholars use grids to make and explain estimates within low and high ranges.
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Mapping It Out: Social Studies Online
A great way to introduce 2nd graders to map skills would be to use this presentation. The visuals are inviting and the layout is easy to understand. This would be a terrific way to cover the basics on how to read a map. There is also a...
101 Questions
Bone Collector
Feel like a detective yet? Pupils first watch a brief clip from the movie The Bone Collector. Using a photo of the suspect's footprint next to a dollar bill, they then use proportions to determine the size of the suspect's shoe.
Wake Forest University
Authentic Activities for Connecting Mathematics to the Real World
Check out the handout from a presentation that contains a collection of high school algebra projects connecting a variety of mathematics to the real world. Activities range from simple probabilities to calculus. The activities can be...
NASA
Solar System Scale & Size
Use a variety of whole fruits to represent the different planets in the solar system to introduce scale sizes to your math or space science class. They follow suit by creating a non-scaled model of the solar system using specific-colored...
NASA
Earth, Earth’s Moon, Mars Balloons
Very specific diameters are given for blowing up three different balloons to represent, in scale, the moon, Earth, and Mars. In groups of three, amateur astronomers explore scale measurements and distance in space.
Pacific Science Center
Worlds in Comparison
Young astronomers follow a step-by-step procedure for dividing a lump of dough into parts, resulting in a scaled volume set of puny planets. Along with the printable directions is a template chart of planet names on which learners can...
Illustrative Mathematics
Floor Plan
A multi-step problem has learners finding the actual area based on a scale drawing and then converting units at the end. Two different solution choices are listed depending on the preference on which step to start first. Both methods can...
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Essential Elements of Habitat
First graders compare their local area with the Belize landscape. They construct maps of the school area, adding descriptive information. They write haiku poems about their favorite outside places.
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A Pentatonic Scale Activity
The famous Japanese tune, "Cherry Blooms" was composed using a pentatonic scale. Budding musicians explore the nature and theory behind the pentatonic scale as well as the East Asian music it is commonly used in. Multiple extensions are...