How much land does a parcel hold? How much fertilizer does it take for a field of corn? Pupils answer these questions and more as they apply ratio reasoning and unit analysis. 

After reading an informative paragraph that outlines some of the differences between plants and animals, fifth graders attempt to correctly categorize 12 words in a word bank. They must put them in the plant, or animal category. This...

Five women of different ethnicities and living in differently colored houses own different pets, drink different beverages, and work in different professions. Who is who? Solve a logic puzzle that provides 14 clues about connections...

Practice making shadows with a kindergarten science experiment. After deciding which picture would represent the biggest shadow, kids use a flashlight to experiment with their own shadows. For extra fun, have kids mark their shadows...

The test may say you have cancer, but sometimes the test is wrong. The provided task asks learners to analyze cancer statistics for a fictitious town. Given the rate of false positives, they interpret the meaning of this value in the...

Pupils design a fence for a backyard pool. Scholars develop a fence design based on given constraints, determine the amount of material they need, and calculate the cost of the project. 

What an impressive task it is to make dental impressions! Pupils learn how dentists use proportional reasoning, unit conversions, and systems of equations to estimate the materials needed to make stone models of dental impressions....

Obesity is a worldwide concern. Using survey results, learners compare local BMI statistics to celebrity BMI statistics. Scholars create box plots of the data, make observations about the shape and spread of the data, and examine the...

Keep your pets slim, trim, and healthy using mathematics! Pupils use a linear programming model to optimize the amount and type of food to provide to a pet rabbit. They model constraints by graphing inequalities and use them to analyze a...

Who knew running a greenhouse required so much math? Amaze future mathematicians and farmers with the amount of unit conversions, ratio and proportional reasoning, and geometric applications involved by having them complete the...

Agriculture is truly a math-based profession! Help the dairy farmer determine the supplies needed to complete his barn. Using given dimensions, learners build equations and use units to determine the correct amount of materials.

Food companies understand how to use math to their advantage. Learners explore the math related to the packaging and serving size of yogurt. They then use unit analysis and percent values to make decisions on the product development.

Babies grow at an incredible rate! Demonstrate how to model growth using a linear function. Learners build the function from two data points, and then use the function to make predictions.

Fifth graders read an informative paragraph about how blood travels through our bodies. Then, they fill in the missing letters for words that label things in the circulatory system. An answer key is provided on page two. An interesting,...

If you have ever injured your shoulder, you know it takes a while to improve your arm's range of motion. In this real-world example, young mathematicians gain insight into the world of physical therapy while they analyze a case study...

Farming is full of mathematics, and it provides numerous real-world examples for young mathematicians to study. Here, we look at a cylinder-shaped storage silo that has one flat side. Given certain dimensions, students need to determine...

Just about every public building that your students are familiar with has an access ramp which complies with ADA requirements. As it turns out, designing such a ramp is an excellent activity to incorporate slope, the Pythagorean Theorem,...

Teams use the design process to design, build, and test a model levee to protect the town from a wall of water. A handout provides a price list for the materials learners can use to build their levee within a budget.

What do physicists and musicians have in common? A lot more than you might think. After first viewing a slide show presentation and completing a series of skills practice worksheets on the physics of light, sound, and...

Plants can die if they don't get enough sunlight and water. Kindergartners observe a picture of a hanging plant and grass under a tree, and interpret which each plant has died. Next, they grow watercress seeds in wet cotton to compare...

A nose knows! Connect animals to their noses with a fun science activity. Animals include elephants, rats, pigs, and even humans. For a science exploration, kindergartners answer questions about what they can smell. A great addition to...

Learn how to measure weight with newtons in a science experiment about gravity. After they read a short paragraph about force, fifth graders draw an arrow to indicate which way a spring is being pulled. Next, they survey their family...

How does sound travel in a string walkie-talkie? Third graders read about the way vibrations act between two cups and a string. Next, they put the steps in order, and experiment with their own walkie-talkies.

Which animals eat meat to stay alive? Third graders group fish, hawks, and cats into carnivores and herbivores. An extended activity prompts kids to cut out magazine pictures of different animals according to the foods that they eat.