Illustrative Mathematics
Sharing Prize Money
When three classrooms are to split up prize money, your mathematicians must find the percentage that each class deserves and calculate the total amount. There is an option to use a calculator and practice rounding.
Baylor College
Food: The Math Link
Enrich your study of food science with with these math worksheets. They offer a variety of food-related word problems that are great practice for multiplying, identifying fractions, estimating length, and performing calculations...
101 Questions
Dandy Candies
Package design is an economic necessity. Young scholars assume the role in an interesting inquiry-based lesson. Given 24 cubic shaped candies to package, they must determine the arrangement that uses the least amount of cardboard to...
Illustrative Mathematics
Origami Stars
This one problem concentrates on the important concept of dividing a whole number by a unit fraction. Here, young mathematicians use pictures they draw to help answer this problem. Insight into the connection between multiplication and...
Making Math More Fun
Making Math More Fun
Address fundamental math skills with a series of fun math board games. With 25 games that focus on addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, place value, and percentages, kids will quickly find that math practice is their favorite...
Curated OER
Repeating Decimal as Approximation
You are used to teaching repeating decimals with bar notation that keeps us from writing that number over and over again; now teach what the over and over again represents. This activity allows your mathematicians to explore the infinite...
101 Questions
Retina Display
Learners calculate the pixel density of a specific cell phone using the concept of similarity. They use information from the cell phone's website to make their calculations and then compare their results to the posted information.
Computer Science Unplugged
Lightest and Heaviest—Sorting Algorithms
How do computers sort data lists? Using eight unknown weights and a balance scale, groups determine the order of the weights from lightest to heaviest. A second worksheet provides the groups with other methods to order the weights. The...
Illustrative Mathematics
Comparing Years
Who knew that the Egyptian, Julian, and Gregorian year were different lengths? Your mathematicians will! They will have to calculate the difference between the years in seconds and find the percent change. Using dimensional analysis,...
It's About Time
Energy Flow in Ecosystems
Emerging biochemists more fully understand the flow of energy in ecosystems as they explore the laws of thermodynamics and relate them to energy transfer in food chains. They also investigate heat loss from the human body and how...
Curated OER
Task: Miniature Golf
"Fore!" All right, no one really yells this out in miniature golf, but this well-defined activity will have your charges using lots of numbers in their unique design of a miniature golf hole. Included in the activity criteria is the...
Curated OER
Access Ramp
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,...
Illustrative Mathematics
Area of a Trapezoid
Here is a straightforward example of how to apply the Pythagorean Theorem to find an unknown side-length of a trapezoid. Commentary gives additional information on proving that the inside of the trapezoid is a rectangle, but is...
Illustrative Mathematics
Extensions, Bisections and Dissections in a Rectangle
Gaining practice in translating a verbal description into a diagram and then an equation is the real point of this similar triangles exercise. Once the diagram is drawn, multiple methods are provided to reach the conclusion. An effective...
Illustrative Mathematics
Setting Goals
Setting financial goals is a common occurrence in middle school that your learners can practice using this activity. They will be able to solve for how many hours Seth needs to work to save up for a skateboard, helmet, and trip. The...
Illustrative Mathematics
Anna in D.C.
The amount of tax and tip on a restaurant bill is a common example used in percent problems. Here, learners only know the total amount paid, and they need to figure the itemized amounts. Solutions using a ratio table, using knowledge of...
Illustrative Mathematics
Runners' World
Learners must investigate the validity of a claim made in a running magazine. They must identify and look up unprovided information, make appropriate estimations, and be able to convert units. Might be best used as a group or whole-class...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
The Great Elephant Census Modeling Activity
They say elephants never forget—and your class won't forget an insightful modeling activity either! Junior zoologists take part in a mock elephant census using the sample count and total count methods. The included materials provide...
Mrs. Burke's Math Page
The Amazing Pi Race
Add a sense of excitement to your math class with this race across the country. Using their knowledge of all things circular, young mathematicians work in pairs answering a series of pi-related word problems as they hop from one city to...
Howard County Schools
Discounting Tickets
A boss who can't do math? Oh, no! Young entrepreneurs use linear and exponential models to determine which discount will yield the most profit on ticket sales.
Curated OER
Mixing Fertilizer
Your young landscapers do concentration calculations in this problem dealing with mixing fertilizer. Learners use and analyze rational expressions within this context.
Curated OER
How Do You Get to School?
Looking for a short assessment on probability? Learners use a two-way table to calculate a probability and a conditional probability. Multiple choice answers could be eliminated to create a short-answer activity for your class. There are...
Illustrative Mathematics
Data Transfer
A question to ask your class is, How fast is your Internet? That depends on the data transfer rate (DTR), which is the unit rate used in this activity. Math students will calculate how long it takes to download a music file and a video...
Illustrative Mathematics
Zeroes and factorization of a non polynomial function
Functions behaving badly: the squaring function and the absolute value function are both zero at x=0. Yet when you divide each by x, different things happen. Here, your class will explore each scenario as a means to adding depth to their...