Curated OER
Rainy Day Physical Education
Out of ideas for what to do with your PE class on a rainy day? Look no further, as this document has over 50 great ideas for indoor activities! Each activity is clearly explained, is engaging, and will give your youngsters a much-needed...
Digital Lesson
Cereal Box Surface Area
How much math can your learners pour out of a cereal box? Your middle schoolers will explore their favorite cereal and calculate the surface area, volume, and weight ratios and log this information on the provided worksheet. They get to...
PBS
Lessons - Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot!
Volcanoes are among the most spectacular geological features on the planet. Jump into an exploration of these amazing phenomenon with this multimedia lesson series. Working collaboratively in small groups, young scientists view videos...
Curated OER
How Fast is Usain Bolt?
Revisit the 2012 Summer Olympics by having seventh graders calculate the unit rate sprinting speed of the 100-meter gold medal winner.
Curated OER
7.RP Music Companies, Variation 2
Real-world multiple-step proportion problems are sometimes hard to find for your math class. Here is one designed specifically to meet that need. Learners use proportional relationships to determine price per share in the acquisition of...
Curated OER
7.RP Music Companies, Variation 1
We've got the beat! And your musically-minded mathematicians will tap their toes as they determine which music company would be getting a better deal based on their offers to buy out TunesTown. The topic is extended in an additional...
Curated OER
Art Class, Variation 2
Given a set of six paint mix ratios, artistic mathematicians produce an equation that relates the number of parts for blue paint to parts for yellow paint resulting new shades of green.
Curated OER
Estimating the Mean State Area
Seventh grade statisticians randomly select five states and then determine the mean area. The class then works together to create a dot plot of their results.
Illustrative Mathematics
Waiting Times
Probability prevails in this assignment as youngsters determine the probability of finding a blue pen in a cereal box when they can come in blue, green, yellow, or red. Learners set up a simulation to determine the outcome of compound...
Curated OER
Distances on the Number Line 2
Simple tasks are presented for your seventh grade math masters. They are to determine whether two numbers on a number line are equidistant from zero and what the two added together would be.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
The Making of the Fittest: Natural Selection in Humans
Sickle cell disease only occurs when both parents contribute the trait, and mostly in those of African descent. Where did it come from? How did it evolve? Tony Allison, a molecular biologist, noticed a connection between sickle cell and...
Curated OER
Congruent Rectangles
Very simply, geometers examine a pair of rectangles on graph paper and find a translation and rotation to demonstrate their congruence. A couple of questions follow to stimulate critical thinking about other possibilities.
Curated OER
Flower Vases
Which vase holds more water: a cylinder, sphere, or cone? Figure out which should be used for your sister's birthday bouquet with this practical word problem.
Curated OER
Glasses
Provide your class some practice with the dimensions of geometric figures. Here you have a set of three different-shaped, stemmed drinking glasses with diameters and heights provided. Math-minded individuals calculate the volume of each....
Curated OER
Partitioning a Hexagon
The task at hand is to partition a hexagon into two, four, and eight congruent figures. Make sure to give your wizards a sheet of triangle grid paper on which to decompose the hexagons. Have them explain which rotations, reflections, or...
Curated OER
Reflecting a Rectangle Over a Diagonal
Use the handout as guided or independent practice in drawing a reflection of a rectangle over a line. Three rectangles are provided for practice in addition to a critical thinking question.
Curated OER
Areas of Geometric Shapes with the Same Perimeter
A triangle, square, hexagon, and circle all have a perimeter of one unit. Eighth graders must attempt to find the area of each and arrange them in order from least to greatest areas. A terrific task for applying four different...
Curated OER
A Rectangle in the Coordinate Plane
A quadrilateral is drawn on the coordinate plane, and eighth grade geometers find the length of each side and the diagonals by applying the Pythagorean theorem.
Illustrative Mathematics
Comparing Snow Cones
Everyone wants to have the biggest snow cone possible, so would that be in cone-shaped cup or a more cylinder-style cup? Hungry geometry juniors compute the volume of each in this practical task.
Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program
Reading Literature - An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” Ambrose Bierce’s short story, is used to model how structural moves, the decisions an author makes about setting, point of view, time order, etc., can be examined to reveal an author’s purpose. Groups...
Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program
Reading Literature - My Last Dutchess
Draw back the curtain, add a spot of joy to your class, and let learners be lessoned by a close reading exercise that models how to develop an interpretation based on evidence drawn from a text. Robert Browning’s dramatic monologue “My...
University of California
Artificially Selecting Dogs
Selective breeding has resulted in some novel and beautiful or useful dogs over the years. Using the American Foxhound as an example, genetics learners find out how and why they came about. Then, in small groups, they select breeds to...
Personal Genetics Education Project
Direct-to-consumer Genetic Testing
If you knew that you were likely to develop Alzheimer's disease in your future, how would it affect your life in the meantime? This and other similar thought-provoking questions are discussed in a lesson plan about the availability of...
Personal Genetics Education Project
DNA, Crime and Law Enforcement
Civil rights meets biotechnology in a instructional activity that scrutinizes the collection of DNA of citizens who have been arrested, but not yet convicted of a crime. Real-life cases are examined in which the DNA of a relative was...