Achieve
Corn and Oats
How much land does a parcel hold? How much fertilizer does it take for a field of corn? Pupils answer these questions and more as they apply ratio reasoning and unit analysis.
Achieve
Framing a House
If members of your class wonder where they can use the math they learn in middle school, let them discover the answer. Learners apply geometry concepts of scale and measure to calculate the costs of framing a house addition.
Achieve
Task: Storage Sheds
Bridge the gap between mathematics and Career Technical Education. Pupils research the cost associated with building storage sheds and analyze possible profit. They build scale models and determine if building and selling the sheds is a...
Curated OER
Dental Impressions
What an impressive task it is to make dental impressions! Pupils learn how dentists use proportional reasoning, unit conversions, and systems of equations to estimate the materials needed to make stone models of dental impressions....
Achieve
Dairy Barn
Agriculture is truly a math-based profession! Help the dairy farmer determine the supplies needed to complete his barn. Using given dimensions, learners build equations and use units to determine the correct amount of materials.
Achieve
Stairway
It's the stairway to learning! Scholars research all aspects of building a staircase. Using information from building codes, they write and graph a system of inequalities to analyze the constraints. The completed project is a scale model...
NASA
Lunar Colonization
A five-lesson unit challenges teams to design a complex to allow people to colonize the Moon. The teams first work in order to understand the challenge before becoming experts. Expert teams learn about different aspects needed to survive...
NASA
Creating a Space Exploration Infrastructure
What will it take to explore space? Teams of pupils determine the needs of a lunar outpost and research the required systems. The pupils then learn about the past space exploration vehicles. The third and final lesson challenges project...
EngageNY
Making Scale Drawings Using the Parallel Method
How many ways can you create a dilation? Many! Individuals strengthen their understanding of dilations by using various methods to create them. The new technique builds on pupils' understanding of the ratio method. Using the ratio,...
Computer Science Unplugged
Lightest and Heaviest—Sorting Algorithms
How do computers sort data lists? Using eight unknown weights and a balance scale, groups determine the order of the weights from lightest to heaviest. A second worksheet provides the groups with other methods to order the weights. The...
EngageNY
The Volume Formula of a Sphere
What is the relationship between a hemisphere, a cone, and a cylinder? Using Cavalieri's Principle, the class determines that the sum of the volume of a hemisphere and a cone with the same radius and height equals the volume of a...
EngageNY
Proving the Area of a Disk
Using a similar process from the first lesson in the series of finding area approximations, a measurement resource develops the proof of the area of a circle. The problem set contains a derivation of the proof of the circumference formula.
EngageNY
What Is Area?
What if I can no longer justify area by counting squares? Lead a class discussion to find the area of a rectangular region with irrational side lengths. The class continues on with the idea of lower approximations and upper...
Curated OER
Sphere Dressing
Geometric design makes a fashion statement! Challenge learners to design a hat to fit a Styrofoam model. Specifications are clear and pupils use concepts related to three-dimensional objects including volume of irregular shapes and...
EngageNY
Using Trigonometry to Determine Area
What do you do when you don't think you have enough information? You look for another way to do the problem! Pupils combine what they know about finding the area of a triangle and trigonometry to determine triangle area when they don't...
EngageNY
Applying Tangents
What does geometry have to do with depression? It's an angle of course! Learners apply the tangent ratio to problem solving questions by finding missing lengths. Problems include angles of elevation and angles of depression. Pupils make...
EngageNY
Properties of Similarity Transformations
You can explain it, but can you do it? After learners view a sequence of transformations, the next logical step is creating the transformation. Challenge your classes to construct a composition of transformations and verify the...
EngageNY
Dilations from Different Centers
Can you follow a composition of transformations, or better yet construct them? Young mathematicians analyze the composition of dilations, examining both the scale factor and centers of dilations. They discover relationships for both and...
EngageNY
How Do Dilations Map Lines, Rays, and Circles?
Applying a learned technique to a new type of problem is an important skill in mathematics. The lesson asks scholars to apply their understanding to analyze dilations of different figures. They make conjectures and conclusions to...
EngageNY
The Volume of Prisms and Cylinders and Cavalieri’s Principle
Young mathematicians examine area of different figures with the same cross-sectional lengths and work up to volumes of 3D figures with the same cross-sectional areas. The instruction and the exercises stress that the two figures do not...
Common Core Sheets
Unit Fraction Word Problems
A set of worksheets prompts learners to practice solving fraction-based word problems. Each problem involves the division of whole numbers by unit fractions. As they work, mathematicians begin to see how division relates to...
EngageNY
Solving Problems Using Sine and Cosine
Concepts are only valuable if they are applicable. An informative resource uses concepts developed in lessons 26 and 27 in a 36-part series. Scholars write equations and solve for missing side lengths for given right triangles. When...
EngageNY
Special Relationships Within Right Triangles—Dividing into Two Similar Sub-Triangles
Why are right triangles so special? Pupils begin their study of right triangles by examining similar right triangles. Verifying through proofs, scholars recognize the three similar right triangles formed by drawing the altitude. Once...
EngageNY
Comparing the Ratio Method with the Parallel Method
Can you prove it? Lead your class through the development of the Side Splitter Theorem through proofs. Individuals connect the ratio and parallel method of dilation through an exploration of two proofs. After completing the proofs,...