This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about creating largest and smallest numbers given digits.

In this example, students learn how to read a topographic map and understand map contours. This resource is from PUMAS - Practical Uses of Math and Science - a collection of brief examples created by scientists and engineers showing how math and science topics taught in K-12 classes have real world applications.

Students practice crossing from one family to the next in counting forward with this concentration game.

This word problem requires students to create expressions to calculate gas milage for a vehicle.

An interactive applet and associated web page that demonstrate the properties of a cube. A 3-D cube is shown in the applet which can be interactively manipulated using the mouse. Research has shown that some younger students have difficulty visualizing the parts of a 3D object that are hidden. To help with this, the student can rotate the cube in any axis simply by dragging it with the mouse. It can also be 'exploded' - where a slider gradually separates the faces to reveal the ones behind. The cube can also be made translucent so you see through it to the other side. Applet can be enlarged to full screen size for use with a classroom projector, and printed to make handouts. This resource is a component of the Math Open Reference Interactive Geometry textbook project at http://www.mathopenref.com.

An interactive applet that allows the user to graphically explore the properties of a cubic equation. Specifically, it is designed to foster an intuitive understanding of the effects of changing the 4 coefficients in the function. The applet shows a large graph of a quadratic (ax^3 + bx^2 +cx + d) and has four slider controls, one each for the coefficients a,b,c and d. As the sliders are moved, the graph is redrawn in real time illustrating the effects of these variations. Applet can be enlarged to full screen size for use with a classroom projector. This resource is a component of the Math Open Reference Interactive Geometry textbook project at http://www.mathopenref.com.

One common mistake students make when dividing fractions using visuals is the confusion between remainder and the fractional part of a mixed number answer.

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach third graders an overview of capacity (english units).

The purpose of this task is to introduce or reinforce the concept of a function, especially in a context where the function is not given by an explicit algebraic representation. Further, the last part of the task emphasizes the significance of one variable being a function of another variable in an immediately relevant real-life context.

Students conduct Internet research to investigate the purpose and current functioning status of some of the largest dams throughout the world. They investigate the success or failure of eight dams and complete a worksheet. While researching the dams, they also gain an understanding of the scale of these structures by recording and comparing their reservoir capacities. Students come to understand that dams, like all engineered structures, have a finite lifespan and require ongoing maintenance and evaluation for their usefulness.

This is an activity about the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights. Learners will plot the Auroral Oval in the northern hemisphere and determine the height of the northern lights using Carl Stormer's triangulation method. This activity corresponds to the NASA CONNECT video, titled Dancing in the Night Sky, and has supplemental questions to support the video viewing.

The purpose of this task is to help students explore the meaning of fraction division and to connect it to what they know about whole-number division.

During the last sunspot cycle between 1996-2008, over 21,000 flares and 13,000 clouds of plasma exploded from the Sun's magnetically active surface. These events create space weather. Students will learn more about space weather and how it affects Earth through reading a NASA press release and viewing a NASA eClips video segment. Then students will explore the statistics of various types of space weather storms by determining the mean, median and mode of a sample of storm events. This activity is part of the Space Math multimedia modules that integrate NASA press releases, NASA archival video, and mathematics problems targeted at specific math standards commonly encountered in middle school textbooks. The modules cover specific math topics at multiple levels of difficulty with real-world data and use the 5E instructional sequence.

There are resources for two activities 1. Cryptograms: These puzzles are familiar sayings that have been encrypted. Use letter frequencies, letter patterns and your best analytical skills to decode these familiar puzzles that can be found in many puzzle magazines or online. 2. Crypto-lists: These lists were designed to introduce students to code-breaking. Each list contains words that relate to the topic. Use letter frequency and your best analytical skills to decode these lists. Remember that each list uses a different code to encrypt all of the words in that list. Hint: use tally marks to record frequency of each letter in the coded list, then use letter frequency information to break the code. Each activity includes an answer key.

This task asks the students to solve a real-world problem involving unit rates (data per unit time) using units that many teens and pre-teens have heard of but may not know the definition for. While the computations involved are not particularly complex, the units will be abstract for many students.

This lesson incorporates sea surface data collected by NASA satellites. Data for three surface characteristics- height, temperature and speed- are used for several activities. Students examine the differences in speed of currents relative to distance from the Equator. Sea surface data anomalies are charted and further analyzed. In addition, surface current data is presented to examine patterns related to El Ni̱o. Note that this is lesson three of five on the Ocean Motion website. Each lesson investigates ocean surface circulation using satellite and model data and can be done independently. See Related URL's for links to the Ocean Motion Website that provide science background information, data resources, teacher material, student guides and a lesson matrix.