EngageNY
Putting It All Together
Shuffle 'em up and deal! Learners practice operations with polynomials using cards they pass around the room. The activity works with pairs or individuals, so it offers great flexibility. This is the fifth installment in a series of 42...
EngageNY
Distributions—Center, Shape, and Spread
Data starts to tell a story when it takes shape. Learners describe skewed and symmetric data. They then use the graphs to estimate mean and standard deviation.
101 Questions
Toilet Paper Roll
You won't want to flush a great lesson down the drain! An intriguing resource asks learners to predict the number of sheets of toilet paper on a roll. Presented with the dimensions of the roll and one sheet of paper, scholars make...
Concord Consortium
Bicycle Chain
Model a bicycle chain with circles and tangent lines. Given the dimensions of the sprocket wheels, young scholars calculate the length of the chain that surrounds them. A second task has learners write a function for the length of a...
University of Utah
Integer Exponents, Scientific Notation and Volume
A one-stop resource for exponents, square and cube roots, scientific notation, and volume formulas guides learners through properties of exponents. As they learn to apply these properties to operations with scientific notation,...
Education Development Center
Writing Numerical Expressions—Hexagon Tables
Explore a basic pattern to practice writing expressions. In collaborative groups, learners examine a contextual pattern and write an expression to model it. The task encourages groups to describe the pattern in multiple ways.
PBL Pathways
Boogie Boards
Solve a complex business puzzle by building a linear programming model. An engaging project-based learning problem has classes examining transportation costs and manufacturing limitations from several plants. Ultimately, they use their...
Curated OER
Biggest Trees in the United States
Young scholars use the Internet (or printed sources) to locate information. They fill in missing information on a graphic organizer (chart) and use the data to answer questions. The research skills help students to develop higher order...
Balanced Assessment
Writing and Sketching Resource
Picture this—the class creates pictures using functions. Here, learners build functions to model specific graphic criteria. They use their knowledge of parent functions and transformations to create the perfect function.
Balanced Assessment
Fermi Length
How long does it take to get to the end of a toilet paper roll? Pupils use their estimation strategies to find lengths of common items. For example, knowing the area of a roll of toilet paper, scholars determine the length of the full roll.
Balanced Assessment
Sloppy Student I
"Does this work every time?" We've all heard it. Now learners get to explore methods to answer that question themselves. Pupils analyze a mistake that has been made with creating a formula for multiplying binomials. They then create...
101 Questions
Best Midpoint
Develop a strong understanding of what it means to be a midpoint. Learners analyze the angles, coordinates, and lengths of segments and their approximated midpoints. They use their analyses to develop a formula to rank four attempts at...
101 Questions
Pixel Pattern
Any vintage video game users in the room? Young scholars use a video presentation to analyze patterns in pixel arrangements. By writing an arithmetic sequence, they make predictions about the size of the image.
101 Questions
Popcorn Picker
A video and popcorn, just like being at the movies! Given the dimensions of two different cylinders, scholars decide which will hold the most popcorn. They find out if their calculations are correct with the provided solution video.
Concord Consortium
Betweenness I
Just between us, this is a pretty cool lesson! Given two functions with the same slope, learners write three new functions whose outputs are all between the given functions. The question is open-ended, allowing pupils to explore the...
Concord Consortium
Betweenness III
Don't let a little challenge get between your pupils and their learning! Scholars compare two absolute value functions to recognize patterns and use them to build their own functions with outputs that are between the given. They then...
101 Questions
Pedestrian Countdown
You won't find yourself racing the clock on such a great task. Scholars use video information to predict the time left on a crosswalk signal after a pedestrian crosses. The video shows the time left on the counter, and individuals must...
Concord Consortium
Broken Spreadsheet II
Work in reverse with the product becoming the given. Using a spreadsheet image of the graph of a trigonometric function, young scholars investigate methods of creating spreadsheet data that results in the given graph. The catch? The data...
Concord Consortium
Intersections I
One, two, or zero solutions—quadratic systems have a variety of solution possibilities. Using the parent function and the standard form of the function, learners describe the values of a, b, and c that produce each solution type. They...
Concord Consortium
In a Triangle
What's in a triangle? Just 180 degrees worth of angles! Young learners use given angle relationships in a triangle to write an algebraic representation. Using a system of equations, they simplify the equation to a linear representation.
Illustrative Mathematics
Invertible or Not?
Two for one—create an invertible and non-invertible function from the same data. The task presents a function table with missing outputs for the class to use to create two functions. One of the functions should have an inverse while the...
Education Development Center
Creating Data Sets from Statistical Measures
Explore the measures of central tendency through a challenging task. Given values for the mean, median, mode, and range, collaborative groups create a set of data that would produce those values. They then critique other answers and...
Education Development Center
Creating a Polynomial Function to Fit a Table
Discover relationships between linear and nonlinear functions. Initially, a set of data seems linear, but upon further exploration, pupils realize the data can model an infinite number of functions. Scholars use multiple representations...
American Statistical Association
Chunk it!
Chunking information helps you remember that information longer. A hands-on activity tests this theory by having learners collect and analyze their own data. Following their conclusions, they conduct randomization simulations to...