One of the most common, everyday applications of math is dealing with money. This single problem calculating how much change Margie receives is more involved than it appears at first glance. An understanding of how fractions and decimals...

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...

Would you rather have a bowl of dimes or a bowl of quarters? A video introduces the problem by presenting two bowls, one full of quarters and another full of dimes. Learners use information from a CoinStar receipt to calculate the number...

If Microsoft wanted to take over Apple, how many shares would they need to break even? This is an ideal task for seventh graders who are studying proportional relationships and applying them to real-world scenarios. Use it as an...

Here is a coin problem where the algebra learner determines the pair of linear equations needed to solve the system. Whether the equations are taken from a table, or your scholars recognize the format of a coin problem, it is an...

A quick activity to test the knowledge of your learners on adding and subtracting with decimals. They must calculate how much Jayden spent at the store and how much money he has remaining.  

Your learners analyze various real-life contexts to decide if each is a linear or exponential model. This could be used as an assessment of learners' skills of discerning between a linear and an exponential model.

Heads! A great way to practice probability is to flip a coin in class. The provided data allows your mathematicians to predict the probability of heads in ten coin flips. Bring coins to class and allow your own trial of heads or tails....

Packing for a trip? This activity allows learners to decide how many magazines and protein bars they can buy with twenty dollars. They can organize their work in a chart to track how many items they can purchase. There are two different...

What would your dream house look like? A cottage? A medieval castle? High schoolers enrolled in Algebra design the perfect house while using slopes to write equations for various aspects of the project.

How much money can Bob expect to make per customer by selling bagels? This short expected value problem can be used as a warm up or a quick assessment at the end of a more detailed lesson. Teacher commentary includes the solution to the...

The longer you wait to try the new pizza place, the more it's going to cost you! This real-world problem about how the cost of pizza varies with respect to time is a good example of how piecewise functions are used to describe...

Your friend Phil wants to know if he should play the lottery. Have your class use the given data to compute the expected value and explain to Phil what he should do and why. This handout is ideal for a quick assessment of skill and...

Learners explore percentages in real world situations. In this percents activity, students determine the final sales price after discounts. Learners interview community members and determine how percentages are used in the real world.

Help learners understand the concept of unit rate as it is applied to buying beans at a grocery store. The objective is to determine the unit rate in two ways, and then apply each ratio to an additional problem. The attached commentary...

Here is a great problem-solving activity for young mathematicians. Intended solely for instructional purposes, the activity is appropriate for learners to add four numbers together. Not only must they add four numbers together,...

In this real-world example, algebra learners start to get a sense of how to represent the relationship between two variables in different ways. They start by looking at a partial table of values that define a linear relationship. They...

Here is a well-designed resource that provides five yes-or-no questions which model different situations with linear functions. It makes a good pre-test for the beginning of the unit. The purpose is to elicit common misconceptions of...

Witness the power of exponential growth with an activity that investigates two different savings plans. Class members create tables of values to see how and when a savings plan increasing exponentially exceeds one increasing linearly.

Drawing from a scenario of the history of the penny, learners write and solve a system of linear equations from a context.

Class members work in pairs to build a catapult to launch a grape a given distance. The catapult project, a compound machine, reinforces pupils' understanding of simple machines.

Class members create their own social networks by collecting signatures before graphing the interactions with their fellow classmates. The degree distribution of the simulated social network is determined by calculating the degree of...

Student teams design their own booms (bridges) and engage in a friendly competition with other teams to test their designs. Each team strives to design a boom that is light, can hold a certain amount of weight, and is affordable to...