Playlist: Bookmarks
Power and Traditions
We compare the power of traditions shared by millions with smaller traditions shared by perhaps just one family.
OK Go Music Video on 64 Phones
A music video filmed on 64 phones and then displayed on 64 phones. What?
Thanksgiving Photo Writing
Starting with an old-timey photo, students will write from a particular item’s point of view.
Writing About Art: The Scream
Your students will turn the iconic painting The Scream into a vivid, sensory poem.
A Lunar Survival Mission
A favorite of mine! This task is delightfully complex and ambiguous, forcing students to make choices without enough information and with no right answer. How will they survive on the moon for three days?
Fractions: Decompose and Recompose
What if we took a fraction apart, then took those pieces apart, then recombined them, and then recombined those, arriving back to the original fraction?
Math Curiosity: Ulam Spiral
What if we make a huge spiral of numbers and then highlight only the primes? Well, a bunch of weird patterns show up!
Holiday vs Holiday (from a Mascot’s Perspective)
Want something to do during the holiday season that is both fun and involves thinking? Get students writing about what a snowman would think about Halloween or what a ghost would think about Thanksgiving.
Disneyland Parking Structure Math Project
Your students will use estimation strategies to figure out how many parking spots are there in the parking structure at Disneyland? And you bet I reveal the real answer!
Undoing Multiplication With Division
Multiplication and division, natural foes, are constantly seeking to undo each other. Students will attempt to reverse the effects of multiplication by dividing once, twice, or even thrice!
Math Curiosity: Magic Squares
Imagine a 3×3 square in which every row, column, and diagonal have the same sum. That’s a magic square!
Math Curiosity: The Coloring Problem
No video gets me more email from students! How few colors can you use to color in any map so that no two, neighboring regions are the same color?
What Does it Cost to Fill a Car with Other Liquids
Is gas actually that expensive? What if we filled a car up with… orange juice?
Math Curiosity: Finding Primes
Prime numbers are unpredictable! How can we possibly find them all? An Ancient Greek mathematician found one way!
Fraction Puzzlers: Add and Subtract Fractions To Reach A Number
You only have six digits to form three fractions. Can you combine them to get to 0?