National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
National Debt and Wars
Take a functional approach to the national debt. Learners collect information about the national debt by decade and plot the data. They determine whether an exponential curve is a good fit for the data by comparing the percent changes...
EngageNY
Modeling Riverbeds with Polynomials (part 2)
Examine the power of technology while modeling with polynomial functions. Using the website wolfram alpha, learners develop a polynomial function to model the shape of a riverbed. Ultimately, they determine the flow rate through the river.
EngageNY
Modeling Riverbeds with Polynomials (part 1)
Many things in life take the shape of a polynomial curve. Learners design a polynomial function to model a riverbed. Using different strategies, they find the flow rate through the river.
Cornell University
Mechanical Properties of Gummy Worms
Learners won't have to squirm when asked the facts after completing an intriguing lab investigation! Hook young scholars on science by challenging them to verify Hooke's Law using a gummy worm. Measuring the length of the worm as they...
EngageNY
Dilations on the Coordinate Plane
Dilations from the origin have a multiplicative effect on the coordinates of a point. Pupils use the method of finding the image of a point on a ray after a dilation to find a short cut. Classmates determine the short cut of being...
Curated OER
Tale of the Tape
How can baseball and skeet-shooting be modeled mathematically? Sports lovers and young mathematicians learn how to use quadratic equations and systems of equations to model the flight paths of various objects.
Curated OER
Graphing the Four Forces
Using the Cartesian coordinate system, future flight experts plot points to determine whether or not an airplane will fly. With the four forces of weight, lift, drag, and thrust represented in different quadrants, your physics learners...
Curated OER
Sunrise, Sunset
What locations on Earth get the longest number of hours of daylight in the summer? Hint: It's not the equator! Use real-world sunrise and sunset data to develop trigonometric models that can be used to estimate the number of hours of...
Radford University
Sleep and Teen Obesity: Is there a Correlation?
Does the number of calories you eat affect the total time you sleep? Young mathematicians tackle this question by collecting their own data and making comparisons between others in the class through building scatter plots and regression...
Concord Consortium
Betweenness IV
Challenge your classes to think between the curves. Given two function formed by the combination of two exponential functions, individuals must write three functions in which all values would lie between the given. The question is...
Concord Consortium
Sine Solution
How many times can eager mathematicians catch the waves? Pupils find the solutions of three different trigonometric equations. They then determine the effect of the slope of a line that intersects a trigonometric function and the number...
Inside Mathematics
Marble Game
Pupils determine the theoretical probability of winning a game of marbles. Individuals compare the theoretical probability to experimental probability for the same game. They continue on to compare two different probability games.
Radford University
How Do I Design a Raised Bed Garden to Accommodate My Plants?
Give plants the best place to grow. Given constraints on plant spacing, pupils design a raised bed garden using graph paper, then calculate the perimeter, surface area, and volume. They use the provided costs of lumber and soil to...
Houston Area Calculus Teachers
Cubic Polynomial
Birthdays are a time for celebration, and now they're a time for calculation! An AP calculus lesson uniquely explores relationships between a polynomial function and its derivative. Learners create a cubic function based...
Curated OER
Coal Supply and Demand
A hands-on simulation perfect for an economics lesson, young learners investigate the availability of different sources of natural energy (coal, natural gas, oil, solar, and nuclear) and how this availability affects their cost....
Curated OER
Filling Up-Gasoline
In this fuel sources worksheet, students calculate the E85 alternative fuel costs per gallon compared to the cost of gasoline. Students complete a table to show the comparison prices. They create a triple line graph to show the...
Curated OER
Mathematics in Bioengineering: Its Application for Today's Students
High schoolers explore the different fields of bioengineering. They will create and interpret graphs from cancel cells data. They then calculate the amount of drugs found in blood and eliminated by the body over time.
CK-12 Foundation
Understand and Create Histograms: Car Sales
Create a history of car sales. Pupils create a histogram/bar graph to show the number of car sales made during the week. Using the data display, learners calculate numerical summaries of the data and find the percent of cars sold during...
CK-12 Foundation
Circles Centered at the Origin: The Map of the Beta Solar System
Calculate galactic orbits in a far-out resource. Pupils drag a point on a circle to graph the orbit of a fictional planet. Using the equation, they find points through which the orbit passes. To finish the simulation, users determine the...
101 Questions
The Mystery Line
Take the mystery out of linear functions. Provided an image with no scale, learners guess where the line that connects them might cross the y-axis. After providing the coordinates of the points, they realize scale is an important...
Radford University
How Is Your Gender Represented?
Does the media shape people's views on gender? Scholars use data on gender portrayal in magazines to explore the idea. They use a spreadsheet program to create bar graphs and perform a chi-square test. They also use provided data to...
Radford University
Tiling
What more could we want from floor tiles? Using pattern blocks and graph paper, pupils determine ways to completely tile a floor of given dimensions. They consider the aesthetic quality of the tiles by creating a tessellation and...
Radford University
Staircases and Ramps
Ramp up the study of slope. The class participates in a discussion about the physical aspects of stairs and ramps they encounter. Small groups work together and measure a staircase and corresponding ramp to calculate the slope of each....
EngageNY
Inverse Functions
Undo the functions. Learners refresh their knowledge of inverses of functions from Algebra II in the 19th section of a 23-part Precalculus unit. Pupils look at inverses in tables and graphs. They then add to their understanding of...