Another good one was the NYC Supreme Court building which is in the shape of a hexagon from an aerial view.

Today, after warmups, my next slide was this picture. One of my 8th grade girls covered her eyes very quickly and said, “Nooooooo… I don’t wanna know ANYTHING about that picture!”

I replied, “Well… let’s just leave it up to the class then!” With a big smile. I had each group come up with a question they would like answered.

1. How many colors are there?
2. What is that picture made up of?
:: I’m starting to roll my eyes ::
3. How much did this cost?
:: I secretly smile as no one sees this as a problem ::
:: Funny-boy pipes up::
4. How many CARS are there??::
:: Class moans, why did you ask him that?!::

“Okay, guys… I won’t take question number 4. I’ll take question number 3. That sounds interesting to me.”

It only took them about, oh… maybe 2.5 seconds realize what they just did.

It’s always more fun than they admit. I’m starting to think that if I showed movies and ate popcorn everyday, 8th graders would complain about either the movie I chose or the way I popped the popcorn.

Thanks!

For classroom use, it should be noted that this problem will appeal to more boys than girls. It’s important to be aware of that dynamic and offer plenty of problems that will appeal equally and to find a few that appeal to more girls than boys.

I am currently working on graphing and have been using graphing stories with them. I think this would be a good one to bring in along with the ticket roll.

Thanks for sharing all the wonderful work you are doing.

1. How many cars of each color are there?

2. How many cars are in the longest ring of each color?

3. What size square would you need to fit the 2500 cars? (Answer in cars, in, or cm?)

4. What would be the diameter of the circle containing 2500 full-size cars? (Pick your favorite vehicle–Hummer, Prius, etc.–or go with the 1/64 ratio printed on the bottom of the matchbox car.)

5. How many cars would fit on a student desk?

6. How many cars would fit in a regular (or compact) parking space?

7. How many cars would fit on the classroom floor (area)? Or in a school bus (volume)? Or in a car?

It’s interesting to follow the evolution of the WCYDWT/#anyqs /3act math over time through your posts.

I think so too. It’s been a real iterative process, one that you folks have been tightly tied up in with your feedback, criticism, and comments. It would have taken me ten extra years to get to this place if I didn’t have you guys setting me straight so often.

John:

I’m still curious about how long you think you would spend with a typical class on a problem like this Car Caravan? I know it depends on the class and the discussion, but ballpark.

At the moment I don’t include timing on my three-act posts in large part because I think you’d have a better idea than I would what resources your class would need to participate in this kind of investigation, including time. In my class, I suspect we’d finish this one inside thirty minutes. I can easily see another classroom taking more time with it, though.

Daniel:

I teach grade 3-8 kids math and was wondering if you or anybody else has created great problems like this for kids not yet in high school.

Hi Daniel, thanks for the feedback. This question comes up kind of a lot and I don’t have an answer. I’ll commit some more time to an investigation and get back to you.