Ratios and Proportions
- How Many Ways: Ratios of 1 to 3
Students will fill in the blanks to find ratios of 1 to 3.
Show 1 Steps
Students fill in the blanks of the equation using each digit from zero to nine only once to find solutions.
- Olympics: Medals by Population
Students will compare the population of a country with that country’s total Olympic medal count and look for patterns.
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Students pick 5 to 7 countries and look up the populations and counts.
Next, they calculate medals per million for each country.
Students create a bar graph to display the medals per million for various countries and identify patterns in the data.
- Analyzing Movies’ Success
Students will analyze data about a movie series, create graphs, note trends, and make a recommendation: should we make another movie in this series?
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Students select a series of 5-10 movies and look up their box office returns as well as critical ratings.
Next, they adjust each movie’s box office returns for inflation so that we can fairly compare the films.
Now, students will create a scatter plot to look for a relationship between the movies’ financial and critical success.
Students analyze graphs to identify trend lines, outliers, and associations between data points using sample movie information.
Next, students will make graphs showing the critical ratings and box office returns of the series over time.
Finally, they will make a recommendation: should we make another movie in this series?
- Investigating Cost of Living
Students will compare the costs of living, wages, and quality of life in three different cities and then decide which is right for them.
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Students will learn about cost of living and pick a third city to investigate.
Then, they’ll get a job and look up wages in the different cities.
They’ll convert their information into monthly amounts.
Next, students will consider the “Quality of Life” in each of the cities.
They’ll analyze the “Cost vs Fun” of their cities by creating a scatter plot.
Finally, they’ll decide which city is best for them and develop a persuasive argument.
- A Donut Investigation
Students decide if a photo is lying about sugar in a donut vs a salad.
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Students rank how much they trust the donut image.
Then they check the math, using ratios to determine if the original image is accurate.
They choose three new food items to compare, looking up the sugar content, then creating donut ratios for each.
Finally, they redo the original image, choosing a new nutrient to use as the comparison.
Students will update their original belief of how much they trust the image.
- A Caffeine Investigation – Part 1
Students will investigate the amount of caffeine in different drinks and analyze the data.
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Students write down five questions about caffeine to investigate its health benefits, dangers, and the amount that is dangerous.
Students search for caffeine amounts in five popular drinks and calculate the caffeine per ounce for each one.
Students create graphs and calculate statistics to analyze caffeine content in various beverages using provided data and worksheets.
- Percents and Credit Cards
Students will use their understanding of percents to make calculations about credit card purchases.
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Students will find a credit card and note the APR.
Next, they’ll “purchase” an expensive item and calculate the cost of interest after one year.
Then, students will calculate the cost of interest after minimum payments for the first three months.
Students calculate how long it takes to pay off a loan using minimum payments and determine the interest costs involved.
- Discovering Pi With Sticky Notes
Students will experiment with sticky notes to find the area of a circle and, along the way, discover pi!
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First, students will cut up post-it notes, trying to see how many they can fit inside of a circle.
Then, you can reveal that (if you had perfect precision) you could fit exactly π post-its into the circle.
- A Nutrition-Based Math Project
Students will work with equivalence to find meals and activities that equal the calories in one popular meal from a restaurant.
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First, students will pick a restaurant and then find how many calories are recommended per day.
Students calculate the calorie count of a common restaurant meal and determine what percentage it is of their daily goal.
Students create interesting equivalences to show how different foods and activities relate to the calories in their meals.
They use their information to design a parody ad.
Bonus: They are now hired by the restaurant to create an ad for a low-calorie meal.
- Furnishing A Hotel
In this math project, students will design and furnish suites and rooms in a hotel. Then they will use their talents to sell their hotel in a presentation.
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First, your students will plan the big picture of their hotel: what will make it special?
Students start shopping for furnishings using a worksheet to track spending for their hotel’s regular rooms and suites.
They’ll break their spending down into five categories of their choosing.
Finally, they’ll determine their hotel’s potential profitability.
Students create a presentation that highlights their hotel’s features, aiming to attract specific types of guests and investors.
- Math Project: What If I Bought Apple Stock Instead?
Students use authentic data to determine how much money they’d have if they sold an original iPod compared to selling an equivalent amount of Apple stock.
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Students identify the information needed to compare the value of the first iPod to an investment in Apple stock.
Students use the iPod’s 2001 price to calculate what an equivalent Apple investment would be worth today.
Students create three ways to show the difference between the current values of an iPod and Apple stock today.
Students repeat their investigation for another product or company (or twice if you’d like!).
Students create a persuasive project using examples and data to argue whether to buy products or invest in companies.