Real data and citizen science projects are wonderful ways to engage students, but they often are best conducted during the fall and spring. What’s a teacher to do in the colder months of winter?
 The new Snowtweets Project from the University of Waterloo has one answer. The Snowtweets Project provides a way for people interested in […]

There are middle school projects that gain impact through collaboration with students outside your own classroom, such as estimating the average amount of water used per person per day. This problem takes on deeper relevance when averages are compared to those of classrooms around the country and the world. Other projects, such as finding the circumference […]

Do you need an innovative way to engage students in data collection and analysis? Or maybe you’d like to teach life science concepts in a more authentic context. Whether you are a science teacher, a math teacher, or both, you may want to consider a citizen-science project from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
Focusing on bird […]

This article first appeared in Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears online magazine April 1, 2008. The article has been modified to include middle school math and science examples. All versions of this article are licensed under a Creative Commons License.
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Collaborative and real-time data projects engage students in collecting and sharing local data; communicating […]

Data overwhelms our modern lives. How to make sense of the numbers in newspaper stories, in campaign speeches, in scientific experiments? Statistics offers tools to help us organize and interpret data. Even at the middle school level, students can work with statistics in real-world situations, whether actual or simulated. To actually apply statistics to real […]

Middle schoolers may not easily see the connection between data analysis problems invented for the classroom and math problems encountered in their daily lives. You will spark their interest in data analysis by showing them its value in finding solutions to real problems in many settings — from buying a soda to taking after-school jobs […]

If you want to “hook” your class on math right from the start, you may want to consider one of these real-world projects. Students deal with real data in these investigations—collecting, presenting, and analyzing their findings. As they work on the NCTM Data Analysis and Probability Standard, they apply school mathematics in contexts arising outside […]

Students need active learning experiences to understand measurement concepts and develop important skills. These resources provide opportunities for students to problem solve with hands-on and virtual measurements in real-world and online environments.
Fit by Design or Design to Fit
This applied mathematics lesson features hands-on activities supporting the NCTM Measurement Standard, and can be used to introduce […]

“Words! Words! Words!” sang Eliza Doolittle in the musical My Fair Lady. “I’m so sick of words!” But students have to master the vocabulary of mathematics. This is especially difficult for those learning a new language even as they struggle with new mathematics vocabulary. The first two resources deal with mathematical terms themselves, while the […]

Graphs are part of the language of newspapers, of political discussion, of science and business. Our students need to be able to read and write in this language if they are to sort out the meaning of the barrage of numbers that hits them in daily life. As stated in the NCTM Standards, middle grades […]