American Statistical Association
What Fits?
The bounce of a golf ball changes the result in golf, mini golf—and a great math activity. Scholars graph the height of golf ball bounces before finding a line of best fit. They analyze their own data and the results of others to better...
American Statistical Association
Happy Birthday to . . . Two?
How many people do you need in a room before two likely share the same birthday? Scholars consider this puzzle by analyzing a set of data. They ponder how to divide the data and determine the proper size of a group for this event to...
American Statistical Association
Bubble Trouble!
Which fluids make the best bubbles? Pupils experiment with multiple fluids to determine which allows for the largest bubbles before popping. They gather data, analyze it in multiple ways, and answer analysis questions proving they...
Mascil Project
Design a Parking Garage
Parking structures don't build themselves. Investigate the process of designing and planning the construction of a parking garage. After considering the factors that must go into the design, scholars create their own models from a set of...
CCSS Math Activities
Cereal
Your breakfast cereal is a good source of math practice. Young mathematicians apply ratios and percents to analyze the amount of protein and carbohydrates in two brands of cereal. They complete a worksheet to answer several questions on...
CCSS Math Activities
Gym
Math requires strength training, too. Scholars consider three different pricing systems for a gym. Given several scenarios, they determine which gym would be cheaper and find how many visits it takes for the costs to be equal.
CCSS Math Activities
Building Blocks
Math is a lot like building blocks—it requires a solid foundation. A short performance task has pupils consider the volume of a cubic block. It then asks mathematicians to find the surface area and volume of a prism made from stacking...
CCSS Math Activities
Baseball Players
Statistics is an important part of baseball. Given the mean weight of players on a baseball team, scholars determine the total weight of the players. They then find the median and range of weights for the opposing team. Lastly, they...
CCSS Math Activities
Picking Apples
Pick the resource while it's ripe. A performance task challenges young mathematicians to consider the costs of apple picking. They compare the costs for two different orchards for different situations.
California Department of Education
My Future Lifestyle
Mortgage, insurance, car payments...how much money will your learners need to support their desired lifestyle? Part three in a six-part college and career readiness lesson plan series tasks young job seekers with creating a monthly...
101 Questions
A Cyclist's Marriage Proposal
One cyclist goes to great lengths to make his proposal! Your classes must figure out just what length that is. Using a map with a bike route that spells out Marry Me, learners calculate the total distance of the ride. They base their...
101 Questions
Banana Bread Baker
You don't want to be short bananas when making bread. Scholars use their math skills to make sure there are enough bananas to go around. Using measurements given in a recipe, they must determine how many bananas they need to increase the...
101 Questions
Viewmongous TV
Just how big of a TV do you need?! The task at hand asks individuals to compare the area of 80-inch and 55-inch TVs. The length of the TV is given and learners must use the Pythagorean Theorem to determine the width to calculate the areas.
101 Questions
Stacking Cups
Facilitate an understanding of equality using a modeling task. After watching different-sized cups being stacked, learners use their math skills to determine when the height of each cup tower will be the same. Meant as an introduction to...
101 Questions
Nana's Lemonade
Consistency is the key. One lemon wedge per glass of water makes a nice glass of lemonade. Young scholars must identify the number of lemon wedges they need to make the same lemonade in a big gulp cup. They develop their own solution...
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...
101 Questions
Shower v. Bath
Which requires more water--a bath or a shower? Given some specific criteria, learners attempt to answer the question. A video shows how long it takes to fill a gallon container using a faucet and a shower head. Using that information and...
101 Questions
Coca Cola Pool
Do the math before you do something crazy—like filling a pool full of Coca-Cola. A video shows a pool owner filling a large backyard pool with bottles of Coke. Scholars use the dimensions of the pool to determine the number of bottles...
101 Questions
Pokémon Go Cheat
Gotta catch them all—no learner left behind! Young scholars must predict the length of time it takes a phone attached to a fan to travel five kilometers given the radius and rotations versus time data. Why would you attach a phone to a...
101 Questions
25 Billion Apps
Learn to use mathematics to your advantage! Using linear modeling, scholars predict the date and time the Apple App Store reaches 25 billion downloads. Considering the prize for the 25 billionth download was a $10,000 gift card, modeling...
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.
101 Questions
Joulies
Does your coffee get too cold too fast? Joulies just might be your answer! Learners use experimental data to make a conclusion about how effective Joulies are at keeping coffee at the ideal temperature. A video shows the graph of 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...
Concord Consortium
Betweenness II
Read between the curves ... quadratic curves! Young scholars analyze the graphs of two quadratic functions by writing their own function whose outputs are between the two given. They then consider intersecting quadratic functions and...