Teach Engineering
Exploring Variables While Testing and Improving Mint-Mobiles (for Middle School)
There are more ways to use mint candies than to just eat them. In groups, learners design and build race cars using mint candies, drinking straws, Popsicle sticks, index cards, and other materials. They decide on an independent variable...
Teach Engineering
Exploring Variables While Testing and Improving Mint-Mobiles (for High School)
Mint candies are good for more than just one's breath. Using basic materials such as mint candies, straws, index cards, and Popsicle sticks, scholars create race cars that meet a given budget as well as design constraints. They perform...
Illustrative Mathematics
Chocolate Bar Sales
In this real-world example, algebra learners start to get a sense of how to represent the relationship between two variables in different ways. They start by looking at a partial table of values that define a linear relationship. They...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Human Impacts on Biodiversity
Have you always wanted to take your science class on an amazing field trip they will never forget? Now you can! Observe the wildlife in an African savanna through trail cameras with a five-part data analysis activity. Learners analyze...
Khan Academy
Challenge: Mickey Mouse Ears
My, what big ears you have! Novice JavaScript programmers adjust Mickey's ears to be proportional with his face and any changes to it. The key is to use variable expressions so that the values used are dependent upon the variable that...
Teach Engineering
Study Design for Air Quality Research
Provide your class with the tools they need to design a research project. Groups examine case studies to gain information about the process involved in designing a research project. They use materials provided to brainstorm and develop a...
Serendip
Carbohydrate Consumption, Athletic Performance and Health – Using Science Process Skills to Understand the Evidence
Should athletes carb load before an event or consume carbohydrates during the competition? Scholars discuss how to set up a hypothesis and experiment to answer a question relating carbohydrates and athletic performance. Then, they read...
Howard County Schools
Setting the Table
How many people can fit around a table? Depends on the size of the table, right? Explore patterns to generate an equation for the number of people that can fit around a table given its size.
5280 Math
Go with the Flow
Round and round they go ... where they stop, only scholars will know. By writing systems of equations, classes determine the number of cars a roundabout can handle given specific constraints. Systems use up to six variables and become...
Illustrative Mathematics
How Many Buttons?
Bring the class into the probability by having everyone count buttons on their shirts. Organize the data into the chart provided and chose different possibilities such as "female with one button" or "all learners with more than four...
IB Psychology
Key Terms Traffic Lights
How much does your class know about psychology? What about empirical evidence? If they could use some time to learn the essentials of psychology, use a quick reference sheet to note what they know before the test, after the unit, and at...
Discovery Education
Cool It!
Adjust the melting time of ice without varying the temperature! Learners experiment with different materials to decide how the materials affect the rate an ice cube melts. They then connect their findings to the conductivity of each...
Illustrative Mathematics
Points on a Graph
Learners practice using their knowledge of how to interpret a function and use function notation. The activity includes two questions. Given an input of a function and its output, the first question asks learners to write the ordered...
Illustrative Mathematics
High School Graduation
An exercise in finding the approximate time that a name would be called at a graduation. Estimating time may be difficult for some of the class, so this resource would not be a good choice for learning this standard. It does end with a...
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments: Relations and Functions
A function is a relation that assigns exactly one value of the dependent variable to each value of the independent variable. When a function is graphed, a vertical line can pass through the graph and touch only one point.
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments: Math Today for Ti Navigator System Cropland Value Grows
Students will create a scatter plot for the data in the USA TODAY Snapshot, "Cropland value grows," and identify the independent and dependent variables for the data. The students will find the rate of change for the data and label this...
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments: Box It Up
Students take a numerical and tabular look at finding the maximum value of an open box constructed by folding a rectangular sheet of material with cutout square corners. They also understand the concepts of independent and dependent...
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments: Math Today More Students Apply Early
In this activity students will explore scatterplots and independent and dependent variables. Students will find the mean value of the number of students applying under the early decision plan.
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments: Math Today for Ti Navigator System: More Students Apply Early
Using the USA TODAY Infograph, "More students apply early," students will explore scatter plots and independent and dependent variables. Students will determine a best-fit regression model for the real-life data set and then use the...
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments: Domain and Range
This StudyCard stack uses real-world contexts to teach the concepts of independent and dependent variables, and then domain and range. It includes practical examples at the end.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Forces and Graphing
This activity can be used to explore forces acting on an object, to practice graphing experimental data, and/or to introduce the algebra concepts of slope and intercept of a line. A wooden 2x4 beam is set on top of two scales. Students...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Mint Mobiles
Students design, build and test model race cars made from simple materials (lifesaver-shaped candies, plastic drinking straws, Popsicle sticks, index cards, tape) as a way to explore independent, dependent and control variables. They...
Vassar College
Vassar College: Multiple Regression
This is an interactive site allowing the student to input data (one dependent and three independent variables) and then letting the computer calculate the regression between these multiple forces.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Cars: Engineering for Efficiency
Students learn how the aerodynamics and rolling resistance of a car affect its energy efficiency through designing and constructing model cars out of simple materials. As the little cars are raced down a tilted track (powered by gravity)...