Curated OER
Applying Properties to Variables
Eighth graders combine like terms in this properties of variables instructional activity. Using named items (stars, moons and hearts), they combine like terms using variables. They use the distributive property to combine like terms....
Virginia Department of Education
Exploring 3-D Geometry
Take young mathematicians on an exploration of the world of 3-D geometry with this seven-lesson unit. After first defining the terms perimeter, area, and volume and how they apply to the real world, students continue on to learn the...
Curated OER
Making Money and Spreading the Flu!
Paper folding, flu spreading in a school, bacteria growth, and continuously compounded interest all provide excellent models to study exponential functions. This is a comprehensive resource that looks at many different aspects of these...
Illustrative Mathematics
Extending the Definitions of Exponents, Variation 1
Scientist work with negative integer exponents all the time. Here, participants will learn how to relate negative exponents to time and to generate equivalent numerical expressions. Learners will apply the properties of integer exponents...
Curated OER
Dragonfly
The speed of a dragonfly brings math into the real world as your learners collaboratively see the value in calculating unit rates in direct proportion problems. This six-phase lesson encourages you, as the teacher, to only ask questions...
Illustrative Mathematics
Which Weighs More? Which Weighs Less?
Expand the the comparative language of young mathematicians with a hand-on weight measurement activity. Working independently or in pairs, children compare the weight of large wooden blocks to various other classroom objects, recording...
Curated OER
The Notorious Four-Color Problem
Take a walk through time, 1852 to 2005, following the mathematical history, development, and solution of the Four-Color Theorem. Learners take on the role of cartographers to study a United States map that is to be colored. One rule: no...
EngageNY
Summarizing a Data Distribution by Describing Center, Variability, and Shape
Put those numbers to work by completing a statistical study! Pupils finish the last two steps in a statistical study by summarizing data with displays and numerical summaries. Individuals use the summaries to answer the statistical...
EngageNY
Connecting Graphical Representations and Numerical Summaries
Which graph belongs to which summary statistics? Class members build upon their knowledge of data displays and numerical summaries to connect the two. Pupils make connections between different graphical displays of the same data in the...
EngageNY
Understanding Box Plots
Scholars apply the concepts of box plots and dot plots to summarize and describe data distributions. They use the data displays to compare sets of data and determine numerical summaries.
National Security Agency
Growing Patterns: Practical Pattern Problems
Your learners explore growing patterns by describing, extending, creating, and evaluating practical pattern problems in this three-day collaborative unit. Beginning with concrete patterns and function tables to extend and describe with a...
Serendip
Understanding and Predicting Changes in Population Size – Exponential and Logistic Population Growth Models vs. Complex Reality
Salmonella poisoning impacts over 200,000 people in the United States each year. Scholars learn about the growth of these bacteria using multiple approaches. Then they apply the same growth calculations to endangered species and think...
Curated OER
Exponential Growth versus Linear Growth II
Your algebra learners discover that exponential functions, with a base larger than one, outgrow linear functions when the inputs increase sufficiently. Their analysis includes using a graphing calculator to produce tables.
Space Awareness
The Climate in Numbers and Graphs
Weather versus climate: weather relates to short time periods while climate averages the weather of a period of many years. Scholars learn about average temperature and precipitation in various climate zones and then apply statistics...
Illustrative Mathematics
Fixing the Furnace
This comprehensive resource applies simultaneous equations to a real-life problem. Though the commentary starts with a graph, some home consumers may choose to begin with a table. A graph does aid learners to visualize the shift of one...
Museum of Tolerance
Where Do Our Families Come From?
After a grand conversation about immigration to the United States, scholars interview a family member to learn about their journey to America. They then take their new-found knowledge and apply their findings to tracking their family...
EngageNY
Counting Problems
Solving these percent problems is a matter of counting. Pupils find percents by counting the number of events that meet the criteria and the total number of possibilities. Participants create the ratio and convert it to a percent to...
Wells Fargo
Hands on Banking
Cha-ching! You just hit the jackpot with this interactive consumer math unit. Supported by a series of online lessons and activities, these lessons engage students in applying their math skills to real-life personal finance problems...
Massachusetts Department of Education
Nostalgia
To prepare for crafting their own memoir, class members examine poetry by Margaret Atwood, Billy Collins, Robert Hayden, and Claude McKay, stories by Richard Rodriquez and Willa Cather, and Barry Levinson's film Avalon. They examine how...
EngageNY
Describing Distributions Using the Mean and MAD
What city has the most consistent temperatures? Pupils use the mean and mean absolute deviation to describe various data sets including the average temperature in several cities. The 10th instructional activity in the 22-part series asks...
Curated OER
Making a Ten
An addition table supports third graders as they learn strategies to improve their math fluency. When finding sums greater than ten, students are taught how to first make a ten and then add on the rest. A similar method is also...
Curated OER
Percents: What's the Use
Young scholars research percentages in real world situations. In this percents lesson, students demonstrate their ability to apply percents to everyday situations. Young scholars communicate mathematically by conducting interviews about...
Illustrative Mathematics
Bake Sale
Put math into action with the real-life scenario of a bake sale. The participants at this bake sale are ready to divide their fresh-baked cookies into bags. It is up to your number crunchers to help decide how many cookies should go in...
Wells Fargo
Hands on Banking
What happens to your money between the time you make a bank deposit and the time you decide to spend it? Take middle schoolers and teens through the process of opening checking and savings accounts, creating a personal budget,...