SamizdatMath

This is a seven part investigation into the carbon footprint of different kinds of food and diets. Investigation #1: What We Emit When We Eat: This is a list of 20 different foods, including meats, dairy, vegetables and grains and the amount of carbon released during their production. Students calculate the equivalent in miles driven by a car, as well as the amount of carbon released per ounce. Investigation #2: Students investigate the carbon footprint of three different meals. The first is a s

This is an incredible, absolutely wonderful investigation that will get your students working with ratios to pursue a worthy goal: to make the best bubble juice that makes the longest lasting bubbles! All you need to do are three ingredients: dishwashing liquid, glycerin (available at pharmacies or online) and di-hydrogen oxide, better known as "water." Your students mix different amounts of the the three ingredients together and test to see how long the bubbles last. But the activity doesn't e

This is a short (40 minute or less) computer based geometry activity which gets students thinking about polygons "outside the box." In this case, it is looking at how to create a closed polygon by adjusting the angle with the number of sides. The activity uses "Papert," an online version of the LOGO computer language that can be accessed at the website http://logo.twentygototen.org. This activity describes in detail to small amounts of code needed to unlock the mystery of the "Total Turtle Trip

This activity is based on Linda Booth Sweeney & Dennis Meadows “Harvest” from The Systems Thing Playbook, a collection of wonderful exercises and simulations for guiding children (and adults) through the process of thinking about how interconnected systems work together. It is a thoroughly wonderful book, and this mathematical investigation would not be possible without it. The basic idea is this: the students in your class are divided into groups, each of which represents a fishing boat. Each

Let's do the math: there are 10, count 'em, 10 different investigations here, all wrapped up in one neat package. They are themed around the applications of percents. Each one highlights a different feature of percents that your students should know about in order to be good consumers and astute citizens of this democracy. Here is what you'll get: • It's a Deal: Many stores offer "buy one, get the second half off." This activity looks at what the percentage off in each case, and asks students

Did you ever think the Metric System, also known as S.I. (Systeme Internationale) could be fun? Well, this activity is more fun than you can shake a stick at: download this product and your students can create a metric identity card, which includes their photo complete with the gen-u-ine Metric Identity Card "seal." Best part of this activity is that after your students have measured their height, weight, handspans, foot lengths, area of their feet and hands, as well as volume of fist in cubic