Teach Engineering
Breaking the Mold
A little too much strain could cause a lot of stress. Groups conduct a strength test on clay. Using books as weights, pupils measure the compression of clay columns and calculate the associated strain and stress. Teams record their data...
Curated OER
Radiation Comparison Before and After 9-11
Using the NASA website, class members try to determine if changes could be detected in cloud cover, temperature, and/or radiation measurements due to the lack of contrails that resulted from the halt in air traffic after the attacks of...
Teach Engineering
Ramp and Review (for High School)
Rolling for momentum. As part of a study of mechanical energy, momentum, and friction, class members experiment rolling a ball down an incline and having it collide with a cup. Groups take multiple measurements and perform several...
Sierra College
"Deals on Wheels!" Car Loan Project
Help your class members learn how to use their income wisely with a comprehensive lesson plan on calculating monthly car payments. Using basic math skills and online calculators, your learners will determine the total amount to be...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Playing with Parachutes
This lesson plan certainly will not be a drag! Little engineers design parachutes that make use of air resistance and, as a result, slow the descent of the payload as much as possible. It is an opportunity to teach about many motion...
Kenan Fellows
Farm to Fuel: The Alternative Fuels Industry
Need a lesson to fuel young minds? A variety of hands-on activities is sure to get your class fired up! Beginning with an introductory slideshow and culminating with group presentations, the week-long unit has something for everyone....
Shodor Education Foundation
Estimating With Fire
Watch the damage from a forest fire in this interactive simulation activity that challenges learners to estimate the burn area using different approaches. Learners are given a worksheet to track the different burn patterns and practice...
Shodor Education Foundation
Triangle Area
While the lesson focuses on right triangles, this activity offers a great way to practice the area of all triangles through an interactive webpage. The activity begins with the class taking a square paper and cutting in in half; can they...
Shodor Education Foundation
An Introduction To Quadrilaterals
Young geometers investigate and apply properties of quadrilaterals. After a review and discussion of key terms, students use a computer applet to explore four-sided figures and classify them according to their attributes. The...
National Security Agency
Classifying Triangles
Building on young mathematicians' prior knowledge of three-sided shapes, this lesson series explores the defining characteristics of different types of triangles. Starting with a shared reading of the children's book The Greedy Triangle,...
American Statistical Association
How Long is 30 Seconds?
Is time on your side? Pupils come up with an experiment to test whether their classmates can guess how long it takes for 30 seconds to elapse. They divide the class data into two groups, create box-and-whisker plots, and analyze the...
American Statistical Association
How Tall and How Many?
Is there a relationship between height and the number of siblings? Classmates collect data on their heights and numbers of brothers and sisters. They apply statistical methods to determine if such a relationship exists.
Statistics Education Web
10,000 Steps?
Conduct an experiment to determine the accuracy of pedometers versus pedometer apps. Class members collect data from each device, analyze the data using a hypothesis test, and determine if there is a significant difference between the...
American Statistical Association
Happy Birthday to . . . Two?
How many people do you need in a room before two likely share the same birthday? Scholars consider this puzzle by analyzing a set of data. They ponder how to divide the data and determine the proper size of a group for this event to...
Shodor Education Foundation
Algorithm Discovery with Venn Diagrams
Here is a activity that takes an interesting approach to analyzing data using box and whisker plots. By using an applet that dynamically generates Venn diagrams, the class forms a strategy/algorithm for guessing the rule that fits the...
Curated OER
Sphere Dressing
Geometric design makes a fashion statement! Challenge learners to design a hat to fit a Styrofoam model. Specifications are clear and pupils use concepts related to three-dimensional objects including volume of irregular shapes and...
American Statistical Association
EllipSeeIt: Visualizing Strength and Direction of Correlation
Seeing is believing. Given several bivariate data sets, learners make scatter plots using the online SeeIt program to visualize the correlation. To get a more complete picture of the topic, they research their own data set and perform an...
101 Questions
Wedding Cake Ribbon
Customers often want ribbon around fancy cakes, but how does a baker know how much ribbon to buy? Scholars view a cake with multiple layers in different geometric shapes. They must figure the perimeter and circumference and add them...
American Statistical Association
Don't Spill the Beans!
Become a bean counter. Pupils use a fun activity to design and execute an experiment to determine whether they can grab more beans with their dominant hand or non-dominant hand. They use the class data to create scatter plots and then...
American Statistical Association
Exploring Geometric Probabilities with Buffon’s Coin Problem
Scholars create and perform experiments attempting to answer Buffon's Coin problem. They discover the relationships between geometry and probability, empirical and theoretical probabilities, and area of a circle and square.
Shodor Education Foundation
InteGreat
Hands-on investigation of Riemann sums becomes possible without intensive arithmetic gymnastics with this interactive lesson plan. Learners manipulate online graphing tools to develop and test theories about right, left, and midpoint...
Statistics Education Web
Consuming Cola
Caffeine affects your heart rate — or does it? Learners study experimental design while conducting their own experiment. They collect heart rate data after drinking a caffeinated beverage, create a box plot, and draw conclusions. They...
Statistics Education Web
Types of Average Sampling: "Household Words" to Dwell On
Show your classes how different means can represent the same data. Individuals collect household size data and calculate the mean. Pupils learn how handling of the data influences the value of the mean.
NASA
Lights on the International Space Station
Groups explore illumination with NASA's Lighting Environment Test Facility (LETF) as a context. Using the TI-Nspire app, groups determine the lux equation that models their simulation. They then use the lux equation to solve problems...