Students learn how to use and graph real-world stream gage data to create event and annual hydrographs and calculate flood frequency statistics. Using an Excel spreadsheet of real-world event, annual and peak streamflow data, they manipulate the data (converting units, sorting, ranking, plotting), solve problems using equations, and calculate return periods and probabilities. Prompted by worksheet questions, they analyze the runoff data as engineers would. Students learn how hydrographs help engineers make decisions and recommendations to community stakeholders concerning water resources and flooding.

In this video segment from Cyberchase, the CyberSquad uses a graph to estimate how much the water level will rise in the Sensible Flats reservoir.

The purpose of this task is for students to translate between measurements given in a scale drawing and the corresponding measurements of the object represented by the scale drawing.

This task provides a context for some of the questions asked in "6.NS Multiples and Common Multiples." A scaffolded version of this task could be adapted into a teaching task that could help motivate the need for the concept of a common multiple.

The purpose of this task is to give students practice working the formulas for the volume of cylinders, cones and spheres, in an engaging context that provides and opportunity to attach meaning to the answers.

The purpose of this problem is to have students compose functions using tables of values only.

During this engineering design/build project, students investigate many different solutions to a problem. Their design challenge is to find a way to get school t-shirts up into the stands during home sporting events. They follow the steps of the engineering design process to design and build a usable model, all while keeping costs under budget.

The purpose of this task is to provide students with a concrete experience they can relate to fraction multiplication. Perhaps more importantly, the task also purposefully relates length and locations of points on a number line, a common trouble spot for students. This task is meant for instruction and would be a useful as part of an introductory unit on fraction multiplication.

Air is one of Earth's most precious resources, and we need to take care of it in order to preserve the environment and protect human health. To this end, students develop their understanding of visible air pollutants with an incomplete combustion demonstration, a "smog in a jar" demonstration, and by building simple particulate matter collectors.

In the first of two lessons of this curricular unit, students are introduced to the concept of friction as a force that impedes motion when two surfaces are in contact. Student teams use spring scales to drag objects, such as a ceramic coffee cup, along a table top or the floor, measuring the frictional force that exists between the moving object and the surface it slides on. By modifying the bottom surface of the object, students find out what kinds of surfaces generate more or less friction. They also discover that both static and kinetic friction are involved when an object initially at rest is caused to slide across a surface. In the second lesson of the unit, students design and conduct experiments to determine the effects of weight and surface area on friction. They discover that weight affects normal friction (the friction that results from surface roughness), but for very smooth surfaces, the friction due to molecular attraction is affected by contact area.

Explore the forces at work when you try to push a filing cabinet. Create an applied force and see the resulting friction force and total force acting on the cabinet. Charts show the forces, position, velocity, and acceleration vs. time. View a Free Body Diagram of all the forces (including gravitational and normal forces).

This task contrasts the usefulness of four equivalent expressions. Students first have to confirm that the given expressions for the radioactive substance are equivalent. Then they have to explain the significance of each expression in the context of the situation.

In this lesson, students will learn that minerals are a necessary part of our diet. They will learn that different minerals have different functions in the body. More specifically, they will discover that iron is necessary to carry oxygen around the body. In the associated activity, students will design a process that removes the most iron from the cereal.

Students learn about the Foucault pendulum an engineering tool used to demonstrate and measure the Earth's rotation. Student groups create small experimental versions, each comprised of a pendulum and a video camera mounted on a rotating platform actuated by a LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT motor. When the platform is fixed, the pendulum motion forms a line, as observed in the recorded video. When the rotating, the pendulum's motion is observed as a set of spirals with a common center. Observing the patterns that the pendulum bob makes when the platform is rotating provides insight as to how a full-size Foucault pendulum operates. It helps students understand some of the physical phenomena induced by the Earth's rotation, as well as the tricky concept of how the perception of movement varies, depending on one's frame of reference.

There is a natural (and complicated!) predator-prey relationship between the fox and rabbit populations, since foxes thrive in the presence of rabbits, and rabbits thrive in the absence of foxes. However, this relationship, as shown in the given table of values, cannot possibly be used to present either population as a function of the other. This task emphasizes the importance of the "every input has exactly one output" clause in the definition of a function, which is violated in the table of values of the two populations.

The example of rabbits and foxes was introduced in the task (8-F Foxes and Rabbits) to illustrate two functions of time given in a table. We are now in a position to actually model the data given previously with trigonometric functions and investigate the behavior of this predator-prey situation.

The example of rabbits and foxes was introduced in 8-F Foxes and Rabbits to illustrate two functions of time given in a table. The same situation was used in F-TF Foxes and Rabbits 2 to find trigonometric functions modeling the data in the table. The previous situation was somewhat unrealistic since we were able to find functions that fit the data perfectly. In this task, on the other hand, we do some legitimate modelling, in that we come up with functions that approximate the data well, but do not perfectly match, the given data.

Show what you know about equivalent fractions and ordering by choosing three activities (in a row, column, or diagonal) to complete the tic-tac-toe board. Standards assessed: 3.NF.3a-d, 4.NF.1, 4.NF.2. This assessment was designed for adult basic education.

Explore fractions while you help yourself to 1/3 of a chocolate cake and wash it down with 1/2 a glass of orange juice! Create your own fractions using fun interactive objects. Match shapes and numbers to earn stars in the fractions games. Challenge yourself on any level you like. Try to collect lots of stars!

Explore fractions while you help yourself to 1/3 of a chocolate cake and wash it down with 1/2 a glass of orange juice! Create your own fractions using fun interactive objects. Match shapes and numbers to earn stars in the fractions games. Challenge yourself on any level you like. Try to collect lots of stars!