Curated OER
House and Holmes: A Guide to Deductive and Inductive Reasoning
Test your pupils' reasoning skills with several activities and a quick mystery to solve. Learners watch and analyze a few video clips that demonstrate reasoning in action, practice deduction with an interactive and collaborative...
Beauty and Joy of Computing
Unsolvable and Undecidable Problems
Try as you might, some functions just cannot be computed. The lab introduces the class to the possibility of unsolvable problems. The fourth lesson in a series of seven begins with a logic problem, then progresses to looking at functions...
Scouts
The Deadly Picnic: A Lab on Deductive Reasoning
Whodunnit? Find out who killed Mr. Brooks through a logical examination of evidence. Class members fill out a couple of data tables to help them pin down the suspect. After they've figured out just who the culprit is, pupils compose...
Florida Center for Instructional Technology
A Human Number Line: Teacher Notes
Twenty-one pieces of tagboard can lead your class to a greater understanding of integers when you use them to form a human number line. After creating this math tool, two strategies for adding and subtracting will have your...
Noyce Foundation
Circular Reasoning
Examine the origin and application of pi in five different levels. The five lessons in the resource begin with an analysis of the relationship between the radius and circumference of a circle. The following lessons lead learners through...
Noyce Foundation
Part and Whole
Now you'll never have trouble cutting a cake evenly again. Here is a set of five problems all about partitioning shapes into a given number of pieces and identifying the fractional amount of each piece. As learners progress through the...
Illustrative Mathematics
Points equidistant from two points in the plane
Young geometers apply their deductive reasoning skills and knowledge of proving triangles congruent in a task that asks them to prove if a point lies on the perpendicular bisector of a segment, then it is equidistant from the endpoints...
Noyce Foundation
First Rate
Explore distance and time factors to build an understanding of rates. A comprehensive set of problems target learners of all grade levels. The initial problem provides distance and time values and asks for the winner of a race. Another...
Noyce Foundation
Diminishing Return
Challenge individuals to compete as many tasks as possible. Lower-level tasks have pupils apply costs and rates to solve problems. Upper-level tasks add algebraic reasoning and conditional probability to the tasks.
Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching
Ten Data Analysis Activities
This thirteen page data analysis worksheet contains a number of interesting problems regarding statistics. The activities cover the concepts of average measurements, standard deviation, box and whisker plots, quartiles, frequency...
Computer Science Unplugged
The Orange Game–Routing and Deadlock in Networks
How is data able to move in a congested network? Groups simulate moving data around a congested network by passing fruit around a circle, following specific rules, until everyone ends up with their own fruit. Extension activities...
Noyce Foundation
Surrounded and Covered
What effect does changing the perimeter have on the area of a figure? The five problems in the resource explore this question at various grade levels. Elementary problems focus on the perimeter of rectangles and irregular figures with...
Noyce Foundation
The Shape of Things
Investigate the attributes of polygons. A thorough set of lessons presents problem scenarios for elementary through high school classes. The first lessons focus on basic characteristics of polygons, including the line of symmetry. As the...
Noyce Foundation
Perfect Pair
What makes number pairs perfect? The resource provides five problems regarding perfect pairs of numbers, the definition of which changes in complexity with each task. Solutions require pupils to apply number sense and operations, as well...
Noyce Foundation
Cubism
If cubism were a religion, would you follow it? Lower-level tasks focus primarily on counting the number cubes in a structure and relating the number to surface area. As learners progress to higher-level tasks, isometric drawings and...
Noyce Foundation
Lyle's Triangles
Try five problems on triangles. Levels A and B focus on shapes that can be created from right triangles. Level C touches upon the relationship between the area of a six-pointed star and the area of each triangle of which it is composed....
Noyce Foundation
Measuring Up
Teach the basics of measurement and conversion with a five-lesson resource that builds an understanding of proportion and measurement conversion from elementary through high school. Initially, young scholars use ratios to determine soup...
Noyce Foundation
Miles of Tiles
Create number sentences and equations to solve geometric problems. Each activity in the series of five asks young mathematicians to consider different-sized tiles to build structures according to specific criteria. The first activities,...
Noyce Foundation
What's Your Angle?
Math can be a work of art! Reach your artistic pupils as they explore angle measures. A creative set of five problems of varying levels has young learners study interior and exterior angle measures of polygons. The introductory levels...
Noyce Foundation
Poly-Gone
Investigate polygons from rectangles to triangles to octagons. Each level of the five-problem series targets a different grade level. Beginning with the level A problem, learners examine the relationship between area and perimeter by...
Odyssey of the Mind
Odyssey of the Mind Curriculum Activity: Made Up Math
Is there a way to connect creative thinking, logical reasoning, mathematical understanding, and humor? You bet there is! Kids begin by creating creative math quizzes, which require creative thinking to solve. For example, 1+1=24, one...
Illustrative Mathematics
Seven to the What?!?
Sometimes what seems like the easiest problem is really the most difficult. Your class is first going to reach for their calculators, but will realize the number is too large to evaluate. Now what? This is where the fun and the...
Noyce Foundation
Piece it Together
Score some problems all related to soccer balls. The first few problems focus on pattern blocks to see relationships between figures. More advanced problems focus on actual soccer balls, the patterns on the balls, and their volumes and...
Noyce Foundation
Digging Dinosaurs
Build a function to solve problems rooted in archeology. A comprehensive set of five lessons presents problems requiring individuals to use functions. The initial lesson asks learners to find the possible number of dinosaurs from a...