Projects: Numbers on the Big Stage

If you are looking for an interdisciplinary project that involves numbers, one of these resources may work for your class.

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Math in Daily Life http://www.learner.org/exhibits/dailymath/

These activities connect numbers to everyday decision-making. A cooking exercise introduces ratios and proportion; an essay on population introduces exponential growth and bar graphs; a home decorating exercise explains how to calculate area; a banking and credit-card scenario introduces simple and compound interest. MSP full record

Down the Drain: How Much Water Do You Use? http://www.k12science.org/curriculum/drainproj/

Students first collect data from their household members and their classmates and then determine the average amount of water used by one person in a day. The power of numbers becomes even more evident as students compare their average to the average amount of water used per person per day in other parts of the world. Through the Internet, they can collect and share information with other students from around the country and the world. A teacher's guide is included as well as guidelines on how students can publish reports, photos, or other work directly to the project web site. MSP full record

The Stowaway Adventure http://www.k12science.org/curriculum/shipproj/index.html

This multidisciplinary set of lessons has students use data from the Internet to determine the actual location of a real ship at sea, calculate its speed and destination, then predict through map and math skills when it will arrive. You will need access to the Internet but not necessarily in the classroom; all the needed details for finding ships at sea are provided, plus lesson plans and handouts. (From CIESE: K-12 Online Classroom Projects) MSP full record

The Global Sun Temperature Project http://www.ciese.org/curriculum/tempproj3/en/index.shtml

In this interdisciplinary project, students record the temperature and the number of minutes of sunlight per day over one week. They then compare these results with those collected by classes around the world. With this information in hand, students answer the core question: How does proximity to the equator affect average daily temperature and hours of sunlight? Included for the teacher are lesson plans, enrichment activities, and information on joining the online project. MSP full record

Annenberg/CPB: Cast Your Vote http://www.learner.org/exhibits/statistics/

This site takes students into a fictional political campaign and its attendant focus on polls. The main topic is statistics; in this case, analyzing numbers collected through surveys of potential voters. Throughout the discussion, the site challenges students to consider a central question: What do the numbers tell us? To help in answering that question, concepts such as random sampling and margin of error are explained at a level open to older middle school students. MSP full record

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Copyright October 2007 — The Ohio State University. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0424671. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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