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Lesson Plan

National Debt and Wars

Curated and Reviewed by Lesson Planet
This National Debt and Wars lesson plan also includes:

Take a functional approach to the national debt. Learners collect information about the national debt by decade and plot the data. They determine whether an exponential curve is a good fit for the data by comparing the percent changes from one decade to the next. Working in groups, scholars compare changes in the debt during the Civil War, WWI, and WWII.

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CCSS: Adaptable
Concepts
the national debt, exponential functions, exponential decay, exponential growth, exponential models, percent change, bar graphs
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Additional Tags
exponential curve, national debt, math
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Instructional Ideas
  • Challenge the class to find smaller intervals of debt they can  model using linear and exponential functions
Classroom Considerations
  • The class should be familiar with fitting an exponential function to data
  • Individuals should be comfortable working in spreadsheets to create graphs
Pros
  • Contains reflections for both the class and the teacher
  • Includes ideas for extensions
Cons
  • The answer key does not provide solutions to the questions in the worksheet