Futures Channel
Algebra Magic
Abracadabra! Letters can be used in math to represent numbers with the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to solve problems! Math magicians will participate in an activity that uses a calculator and a bag...
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics
Charting the Progress of New Horizons
In 2006, New Horizons began its mission to fly to Pluto. As it continues its journey, scholars track its progress with the help of an informative website, all the while reinforcing measurement concepts with the construction of a scaled...
Ohio State University
Ohm's Law
Have you ever wanted to build a conductor? Here is a lesson that takes pupils through building a conductor based on Drude's model in order to better understand electricity.
Curated OER
Magic Color
First graders discover that a chemical reaction is responsible for the effects seen with Crayola Color Wonder markers. They observe that the color changes are the result of a chemical reaction between chemicals in the Color Wonder paper...
Curated OER
Sharing Brownies: Fractions That Represent a Fair Share
Elementary graders discover the concept of fractional pieces of a whole. They investigate the meanings of fractions in everyday life and why they are used. Pupils divide brownies amongst each other to demonstrate the use of fractions...
Illustrative Mathematics
Dilating a Line
High School geometers verify through experimentation certain properties about dilations. This multi-step problem challenges them to construct examples of dilations to verify specific facts, the final step provides an opportunity to more...
Space Awareness
Valleys Deep and Mountains High
Sometimes the best view is from the farthest distance. Satellite imaging makes it possible to create altitude maps from far above the earth. A three-part activity has your young scientists play the role of the satellite and then use...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Building Ecological Pyramids
Looking for a fresh take on traditional food/energy pyramids? Conduct an innovative activity where pupils build their own! The lesson uses research data from Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique for a real-life safari touch. Scholars...
Curated OER
Taking the Boat to Manaus
Fifth graders apply the concepts they know regarding mass, volume and density in the previous activities to design a boat. Student teams must make a boat which can travel the waters of the Amazon Rainforest. Each group makes a...
Curated OER
Reading Graphs
Working independently or in teams, your class practices connecting graphs, formulas and words. This instructional activity includes a guided discussion about distance vs. time graphs and looking at how velocity changes over time.
Curated OER
Sea Turtle Math
Young scholars consider the future of endangered species. In this conservation lesson, students view a slide show and use mathematical data to construct a prediction for the survival of an endangered species. This lesson includes,...
Curated OER
Representing Data 1: Using Frequency Graphs
Here is a lesson plan that focuses on the use of frequency graphs to identify a range of measures and makes sense of data in a real-world context as well as constructing frequency graphs given information about the mean, median, and...
Agile Mind
Transforming Graphs of Quadratic Functions
In the activity on this webpage, learners use interactive graphing technology to investigate transformations of graphs. In the first part of the task, they look at the graph of a quadratic function with coordinates of a few points...
Teach Engineering
Measuring Viscosity
Groups use a marble to determine the viscosity of household fluids. The procedure calls for pupils to measure the amount of time it takes a marble to fall a specified distance in the fluids. Using unit conversions and algebra, the teams...
California Education Partners
John's Trip Disneyland
It all adds up to one. Pupils solve several items that involve finding sums of fractions in relationship to a whole. The assessment task uses fractions with unlike denominators to determine the amount of a tank of gas and the amount of...
Purdue University
Design of an Earthen Dam for a Lafayette Neighborhood
How do dams support bodies of water? Scholars engage in a hands-on STEM activity where they design, build, and test dams to learn about bodies of water and how humans use natural resources. They learn how criteria and constraints affect...
American Statistical Association
Colors Challenge!
Does writing the name of a color in a different colored ink affect one's ability to read it? Scholars design an experiment to answer this question. They collect the data, analyze the statistics, and draw a conclusion based on...
Statistics Education Web
Walk the Line
How confident are you? Explore the meaning of a confidence interval using class collected data. Learners analyze data and follow the steps to determine a 95 percent confidence interval. They then interpret the meaning of the confidence...
Curated OER
Ratios and Proportions
This study guide would be great to use when presenting a lesson on ratios and proportions. It includes clear definitions, explanations, and examples to work through as a class or individually. In addition, it has notes on rates and...
Illustrative Mathematics
Kitchen Floor Tiles
An interesting way to look at the kitchen floor is to count the number of tiles in the border. Fred starts with four white floor tiles and writes an expression for the number of tiles needed for the colored border. Algebra learners are...
Curated OER
Finding the Area of an Equilateral Triangle
The problem seems simple: find the area of the equilateral triangle whose sides are each length 1. In fact, this same problem is solved in 8th grade, addressing a different Common Core standard, using the formula for area of a triangle...
Curated OER
Quadrupling Leads of Halving
Your statisticians will see that an expression is made up of one or more parts that can be seen as a single entity. Learners give an explanation, in terms of the structure. of the expression and, why it halves in value when n is quadrupled.
Curated OER
The Canoe Trip, Variation 1
Your river sportsmen will explore an example of paddling upstream as they build functions modeling speed and time in terms of the speed of the current. They then use their algebraic models to interpret features of the function related to...
Curated OER
US Population 1982-1988
Your algebra learners make predictions using the concepts of a linear model from real-life data given in table form. Learners analyze and discuss solutions without having to write a linear equation.