PBS
Scale City — Proportional Relationships in the Real World
Strive to determine your stride. Scholars first view an informative video on the Kentucky Horse Park and the 28-feet stride of the Man o' War. They then work together in groups to find the length of their own strides by using the number...
PBS
Scale City — Inverse Proportions and Shadows in the Real World
Bring the resource out from the shadows. Viewers of a short video learn about drive-in theaters and how operators project images onto a large screen. They then perform an experiment to determine the relationship between the distance of...
Baylor College
Living Things and Their Needs: The Math Link
Enrich your study of living things with these cross-curricular math activities. Following along with the story Tillena Lou's Day in the Sun, learners will practice addition and subtraction, learn how to measure volume and length,...
Wake Forest University
Authentic Activities for Connecting Mathematics to the Real World
Check out the handout from a presentation that contains a collection of high school algebra projects connecting a variety of mathematics to the real world. Activities range from simple probabilities to calculus. The activities...
PBS
The Lowdown — Examining California's Prison System: Real-World Ratio
Free yourself from the shackles of traditional math lessons. Young mathematicians investigate race, gender, and age differences in California's prison system. They use provided graphics to compare the prison population with the state's...
Curated OER
Population and Food Supply
What does it mean for something to grow exponentially, and how does that compare to linear growth? This activity tries to help learners gain an understanding of these concepts while modeling real-world problems. Linear and exponential...
Curated OER
Task: Range of Motion
If you have ever injured your shoulder, you know it takes a while to improve your arm's range of motion. In this real-world example, young mathematicians gain insight into the world of physical therapy while they analyze a case study...
PBS
Real-World Proportional Relationships: Gender Wage Gap
When will the gender wage gap disappear? Scholars use a provided infographic to see trends in wage gap over time. They use ratios of women's wages to men's wages to determine which decades had the greatest change in the wage gap. The...
Illustrative Mathematics
How Many Cells Are in the Human Body?
Investigating the large numbers of science is the task in a simple but deep activity. Given a one-sentence problem set-up and some basic assumptions, the class sets off on an open-ended investigation that really gives some...
Baylor College
Food: The Math Link
Enrich your study of food science with with these math worksheets. They offer a variety of food-related word problems that are great practice for multiplying, identifying fractions, estimating length, and performing calculations...
Curated OER
Percents: What's the Use?
Learners explore percentages in real world situations. In this percents instructional activity, students determine the final sales price after discounts. Learners interview community members and determine how percentages are used in the...
Math Solutions
Dr. Seuss Comes to Middle School Math Class
If you think Dr. Seuss has no place in a math classroom, then take a look at this resource. Based on the classic children's book Green Eggs and Ham, this sequence of activities engages children learning to model real-world contexts...
Curated OER
Task: Grain Storage
Farming is full of mathematics, and it provides numerous real-world examples for young mathematicians to study. Here, we look at a cylinder-shaped storage silo that has one flat side. Given certain dimensions, students need to determine...
Illustrative Mathematics
It's Warmer in Miami
Brrrr it's cold in Alaska! When given the temperatures of Anchorage and Miami in the winter, your mathematicians will calculate how much warmer it is in Miami. Answer key provides two different solution choices. Great as a warm-up for...
Curated OER
Sore Throats, Variation 1
Why does Nia's water taste saltier than Trey's if she put more into her cup than he did? Math masters set up proportions in order to compare the mixtures. This task effectively has learners apply the concepts of ratio and proportion to a...
Curated OER
7.RP Music Companies, Variation 2
Real-world multiple-step proportion problems are sometimes hard to find for your math class. Here is one designed specifically to meet that need. Learners use proportional relationships to determine price per share in the acquisition of...
Curated OER
Sunrise, Sunset
What locations on Earth get the longest number of hours of daylight in the summer? Hint: It's not the equator! Use real-world sunrise and sunset data to develop trigonometric models that can be used to estimate the number of hours of...
Curated OER
Prescient Grading
Do homework grades really determine test scores? Learn whether lines of best fit, correlation coefficients, and residuals can be used to determine test scores when given homework grades. (It would certainly save teachers time in grading...
Illustrative Mathematics
Summer Swimming
Here is a real-world application for systems of equations. When is it better to pay an enrollment fee and lower daily rate, and when is it better to pay the regular price? The local swim center is having a special offer, reductions in...
Illustrative Mathematics
Tilt of Earth's Axis and the Four Seasons
Geometry meets earth science as high schoolers investigate the cause and features of the four seasons. The effects of Earth's axis tilt features prominently, along with both the rotation of the earth about the axis and its orbit...
Illustrative Mathematics
Bank Shot
Young geometers become pool sharks in this analysis of the angles and lengths of a trick shot. By using angles of incidence and reflection to develop similar triangles, learners plan the exact placement of balls to make the shot....
Illustrative Mathematics
Logistic Growth Model, Abstract Version
Here learners get to flex some serious algebraic muscles through an investigation of logistic growth. The properties of the constant terms in the logistic growth formula are unraveled in a short but content-dense...
Illustrative Mathematics
Placing a Fire Hydrant
Triangle centers and the segments that create them easily become an exercise in memorization, without the help of engaging applications like this lesson. Here the class investigates the measure of center that is equidistant to the three...
Illustrative Mathematics
Waiting Times
Probability prevails in this assignment as youngsters determine the probability of finding a blue pen in a cereal box when they can come in blue, green, yellow, or red. Learners set up a simulation to determine the outcome of compound...