Day One - Close the Door on Hunger PSA

First day of the food drive lesson.  I have been excited as this is a project that addresses the math standard we are currently working with in a real life setting.  PLUS it is promoting a great cause!  Definitely a win-win-win situation!

Using the first handout, Gathering Data, students met in their groups to discuss what they already knew about answering the question, "How many of our item will be needed to block a door?"
Answers:  cost, the bigger the item the fewer needed, area, height, width

Students were anxious to get going, but I knew that some needed a little more direction before setting them free, so in their groups they had to make a list of everything they needed to find out.
Answers:  door height, door width, item height, item width, door area, item area
By discussing this as a whole group after they made their lists, the students that were unsure of the which direction to go, could add these items to their list.

But wait!  One more thing!  I wanted everyone to have a job, so they had to divide up the tasks at hand so everyone would be busy gathering data.  Now...everyone could grab a ruler or meter stick to get the information needed.

Something to think about for next class:  We may have to review meters and centimeters.

Students did a great job gathering their data.  I was able to go back and forth between teams to access understanding and if needed, ask guiding questions to get the team back on track.

When students met as a group again, they made their calculations.  I extended their learning by having them find the cost of blocking one door.  Something I'll change for the next class is to have them at this time immediately create their table of values and algebraic equation.  Again, I was amazed at how perfectly this fit into what we were doing as we were even able to write out the rate... 232 cans per door, which helped lead to the equation!

The next step was starting to think about how the information could be displayed in a public service announcement.  I showed the example I made (see previous post for the example).  Students then worked through a worksheet where they could explore ideas of how they wanted to include the algebraic representations, the item, the cost, and most importantly, how to make this creative to grab the rest of the school's attention when it is shown on the news.

Next steps...
1)  Review the project rubric
2)  As a class, we'll look at the online graphing calculator so students can graph their equations in a professional looking display.
3)  We'll review how to take a picture using Command, Shift, and 4.

The students came up with a great idea to help display how close each room is to blocking their door.  Make an outline on the floor with tape the size of the door.  Food can be placed in the outline.  This would help with any items that are in bags and wouldn't stack well.