The purpose of this activity is to engage students in converting metric units to solve a problem.
This activity assumes the students have experience in the following areas:
The problem is sufficiently open ended to allow the students freedom of choice in their approach. It may be scaffolded with guidance that leads to a solution, and/or the students might be given the opportunity to solve the problem independently.
The example responses at the end of the resource give an indication of the kind of response to expect from students who approach the problem in particular ways.
Task: The organisers of a winter festival are planning to construct a ramp to be used as a ski jump in the main street of town.
They are going to make snow with a machine that uses 4 gallons of water every minute (15.14 L per min) and can only function when the air temperature low enough. They estimate that they will have 6 hours of time overnight to make snow.
If the ramp is supported by posts that can hold up to 500 kg each, how many posts will be needed for the structure to safely hold the snow that will be made?
The following prompts illustrate how this activity can be structured around the phases of the Mathematics Investigation Cycle.
Introduce the problem. Allow students time to read it and discuss in pairs or small groups.
Discuss ideas about how to solve the problem. Emphasise that, in the planning phase, you want students to say how they would solve the problem, not to actually solve it.
Allow students time to work through their strategy and find a solution to the problem.
Allow students time to check their answers and then either have them pair share with other groups or ask for volunteers to share their solution with the class.
The student follows the steps given to solve a decimal word problem requiring conversion of metric units.
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The student solves a decimal word problem requiring conversion of metric units.
Printed from https://meaningfulmaths.nt.edu.au/mmws/nz/resource/ski-jump at 8:52pm on the 26th February 2024