Celebrate the Paris Summer Olympics with a math project geared for middle school students! This project is created for groups of four students to work as a team and on their own. Once groups are chosen, students will choose a country to research and follow.

Topics covered include ratios, unit conversions, algebraic expressions, bar graphs, Microsoft Excel, area, perimeter, mean average, percents, web search, and fraction/decimal conversions.

Students will need Internet access either at school or at home to complete the web searches.

One of the troubles with group work is the team who has one student who does not do his part. This project addresses this concern by assigning tasks to each group member. Each student will select a task catered her strengths as well as help contribute to the Team Task which involves problem solving. If a student does not do his or her part, then that student may lose points and not be a detriment to the rest of the team.

I have included an answer key for the problem solving Team Task. There is not an answer key for the individual tasks because the answers will vary according to the country the students choose.

Class time needed is up to you. You will need 20-25 minutes to introduce the project, set up teams, choose countries, and for students to select tasks. Any class time give beyond that is up to you.

There is also some overlap with other subjects like Social Studies and Computer Applications.