Activity
Curated OER

House Project

For Teachers 5th - 8th Standards
Make young mathematicians' dreams a reality with this fun drawing project. Given the task of designing their dream home, students create drawings and physical models that demonstrate their understanding of proportion and scale.
Activity
Consortium for Ocean Leadership

Measure for Measure

For Teachers 5th - 8th
How does your class measure up? Young scientists create a scale drawing of the JOIDES Resolution in a collaborative activity. The lesson incorporates mathematical principles with deep-sea exploration to focus on enhancing measurement...
Activity
The New York Times

Perspective and Leonardo’s “Perspectograph”

For Students 9th - 12th Standards
Filippo Brunelleschi's invention of linear perspective during the Renaissance was further developed by his apprentice, a young artist named Leonardo da Vinci. Now modern artists can give da Vinci's famous perspectograph a try...
Lesson Plan
1
1
Rainforest Alliance

Knowing the Essential Elements of a Habitat

For Teachers 1st Standards
To gain insight into the many different types of habitats, individuals must first get to know their own. Here, scholars explore their school environment, draw a map, compare and contrast their surroundings to larger ones. They then...
Lesson Plan
Illustrative Mathematics

Floor Plan

For Teachers 7th - 9th Standards
A multi-step problem has learners finding the actual area based on a scale drawing and then converting units at the end. Two different solution choices are listed depending on the preference on which step to start first. Both methods can...
Lesson Plan
1
1
Baylor College

Comparing Sizes of Microorganisms

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Kids compare what printed text looks like with the naked eye and under magnification. They discuss the extremely small scale that must be used to measure the size. They learn about the micrometer unit, then draw scale models of a variety...
Lesson Plan
Illustrative Mathematics

Regular Tessellations of the Plane

For Teachers 9th - 11th Standards
Bringing together the young artists and the young organizers in your class, this lesson takes that popular topic of tessellations and gives it algebraic roots. After covering a few basic properties and definitions, learners attack the...
Activity
Curated OER

Task: Miniature Golf

For Teachers 6th - 10th Standards
"Fore!" All right, no one really yells this out in miniature golf, but this well-defined activity will have your charges using lots of numbers in their unique design of a miniature golf hole. Included in the activity criteria is the...
Lesson Plan
Illustrative Mathematics

Peaches and Plums

For Teachers 7th - 9th Standards
According to the resource graph, which costs more: peaches or plums? Algebra learners compare two proportional relationships and then throw in a banana. Leaving out the scale helps students become intuitive about graphing. 
Activity
Science Friday

Make a Model of a Home Made From Shipping Containers

For Teachers 6th - 10th Standards
Build a scale model of a home built out of shipping containers. A hands-on activity has scholars watch a video about a home built from shipping containers and then design their own home. They build scale models of their designed homes...
Lesson Plan
1
1
Illustrative Mathematics

Shape Hunt Part 1

For Teachers Pre-K - 1st Standards
The hunt is on! Send young mathematicians on a search for shapes in the first lesson of this two-part series. Each time a child finds a hidden shape, he draws it on his paper, and continues searching for the rest. Perform this activity...
Activity
101 Questions

Wedding Cake Ribbon

For Students 3rd - 8th Standards
Customers often want ribbon around fancy cakes, but how does a baker know how much ribbon to buy? Scholars view a cake with multiple layers in different geometric shapes. They must figure the perimeter and circumference and add them...
Activity
MENSA Education & Research Foundation

Pi Day Fun!

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
In this multi-faceted introduction to pi, participants perform a bevy of pi-related activities. Ranging from measuring household items to singing pi songs and reading pi stories, this fun and non-intimidating resource serves to bring up...
Activity
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

Over the Hill

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Can you hear me from there? Pupils determine the place to build a cell tower on a hill. The class uses constraints and creates a scale drawing on a coordinate system to calculate the exact location of the base of the cell tower.
Activity
Curated OER

Middle Ages Cross Curriculum Project

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Middle schoolers complete several projects on the Middle Ages. In this world history lesson, students complete language arts, social studies, math, and science projects. Some of these include: comparing a teenager's life now to that in...
Activity
Discovery Education

Weathering Cubes

For Teachers K - 8th
Weathering is not necessarily a result of the weather. Scholars conduct an experiment to explore the effect of surface area and volume on the weathering process. They create their own sugar cube rocks using the same number of cubes—but...
Activity
Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Weighing the Evidence for a Mass Extinction: Part 1 – In the Ocean

For Students 6th - 12th Standards
Extinction events have happen throughout geologic history, but only five mass extinctions occurred over the last 4.5 billion years. Scholars view fossils from a layer of sediment during an extinction event and observe patterns to draw...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

How Heavy

For Teachers Pre-K - 1st Standards
Break out the balances for this primary grade lesson on weight measurement. Using common elementary school manipulatives like unifix or snap cubes, young mathematicians determine the weight of four different classroom objects. A graphic...
Lesson Plan
Illustrative Mathematics

Which Weighs More? Which Weighs Less?

For Teachers Pre-K - 1st Standards
Expand the the comparative language of young mathematicians with a hand-on weight measurement activity. Working independently or in pairs, children compare the weight of large wooden blocks to various other classroom objects, recording...
Activity
1
1
Teach Engineering

What a Drag!

For Teachers 5th - 7th Standards
Stop and drop what is in your hand! Pupils investigate how form effects drag in the 12th part of a 22-part unit on aviation. Groups create equally weighted objects and determine which one falls the fastest by collecting data.
Activity
1
1
Curated OER

Access Ramp

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Just about every public building that your students are familiar with has an access ramp which complies with ADA requirements. As it turns out, designing such a ramp is an excellent activity to incorporate slope, the Pythagorean Theorem,...
Activity
Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Patterns in the Distribution of Lactase Persistence

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
We all drink milk as babies, so why can't we all drink it as adults? Examine the trend in lactase production on the world-wide scale as science scholars analyze and interpret data. Groups create pie charts from the data, place them on a...
Lesson Plan
Illustrative Mathematics

Christo’s Building

For Teachers 6th - 7th Standards
Hook your charges on how to solve a real-world art problem with mathematics by showing works of Christo. You can find eye-catching images on the Christo and Jeanne Claude webpage. Here, math learners help Jean Claude and Christo prepare...
Activity
Illustrative Mathematics

Seeing is Believing

For Teachers 5th Standards
How many visual models can be used to show multiplication? Three basic kinds of models can be used to represent and explain the equation 4 x (9 + 2).  The commentary section provides description and graphics to explain the set...