The purpose of this activity is to engage students in using fractions and percentages 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.
A group of students have been asked to write a report on the use of the school playground at lunchtime.
They asked everyone in their class what their preferred activity was. One half of the students said soccer, one quarter said the adventure playground, one sixth said sitting around and the remainder said playing tag. There are 24 students in the class. They then realised the teacher should be included. She said she liked to sit around as well.
What percentage of the whole class (teacher included) can the group say are active at lunch time?
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 finds the number of students doing each activity, by finding fractions of a whole number. They allow for the teachers and express the fraction of ‘active’ people as equivalent fractions and percentage.
Click on the image to enlarge it. Click again to close.
The student draws a 6 x 4 array to represent the students in the class and partitions the array into parts matching each fraction. After allowing for the teacher, they draw four arrays that measure 5 x 5 to model a percentage. Using a combination of diagrams and calculations they find the correct percentage.
Printed from https://nzmaths.co.nz/resource/lunchtime-activities at 1:23pm on the 27th April 2024