This lesson is part of a series of lessons that indigenize math education by including an art of the Native American tribes of Wisconsin-Menominee, Oneida, Ojibway, Ho Chunk and Stockbridge-Munsee. Beading has become ubiquitous in indigenous culture and is a modern art form. This context may be familiar to indigenous students as well as others. The unit starts with ratio identification and writing and moves to solving ratio reasoning problems, rate reasoning problems, and ends with graphing relationships. These are meant to supplement or replace current lessons.

This lesson is called Cedar's Sales and is an introductory lesson about
creating tables and graphs showing rate relationships.

Riding at a Constant Speed focuses primarily on application of ratio and rate reasoning to solve problems. The problem presents Lin riding a bike at a constant speed: 20 miles in 150 minutes. The resource uses students' apply their initial understanding of ratios and rates to solve a real-life problem. The task uses friendly numbers so students can easily develop different solution strategies (unit rate, double number line, table, graph) to solve the problem. While the resource does not explicitly mention it, this task has potential to discuss the different representations and have students make connections among them.

Students build scale models of objects of their choice. In class they measure the original object and pick a scale, deciding either to scale it up or scale it down. Then they create the models at home. Students give two presentations along the way, one after their calculations are done, and another after the models are completed. They learn how engineers use scale models in their designs of structures, products and systems. Two student worksheets as well as rubrics for project and presentation expectations and grading are provided.

Students learn how different characteristics of shapes—side lengths, perimeter and area—change when the shapes are scaled, either enlarged or reduced. Student pairs conduct a “scaling investigation” to measure and calculate shape dimensions (rectangle, quarter circle, triangle; lengths, perimeters, areas) from a bedroom floorplan provided at three scales. They analyze their data to notice the mathematical relationships that hold true during the scaling process. They see how this can be useful in real-world situations like when engineers design wearable or implantable biosensors. This prepares students for the associated activity in which they use this knowledge to help them reduce or enlarge their drawings as part of the process of designing their own wearables products. Pre/post-activity quizzes, a worksheet and wrap-up concepts handout are provided.

Students create a model of the solar system using beads and a piece of string. The scale model is for distances planets are from the Sun, not sizes of the planets in comparison to the Sun. Students use ratios to calculate the distances they need to use to create their model. Once students complete their models, there are many possibilities for extension discussions and extension questions.

Students work together in small groups, while competing with other teams, to explore the engineering design process through a tower building challenge. They are given a set of design constraints and then conduct online research to learn basic tower-building concepts. During a two-day process and using only tape and plastic drinking straws, teams design and build the strongest possible structure. They refine their designs, incorporating information learned from testing and competing teams, to create stronger straw towers using fewer resources (fewer straws). They calculate strength-to-weight ratios to determine the winning design.

Students construct "a tetrahedron and describe the linear, area and volume using non-traditional units of measure. Four tetrahedra are combined to form a similar tetrahedron whose linear dimensions are twice the original tetrahedron. The area and volume relationships between the first and second tetrahedra are explored, and generalizations for the relationships are developed." (from NCTM Illuminations)

Students apply their knowledge of scale and geometry to design wearables that would help people in their daily lives, perhaps for medical reasons or convenience. Like engineers, student teams follow the steps of the design process, to research the wearable technology field (watching online videos and conducting online research), brainstorm a need that supports some aspect of human life, imagine their own unique designs, and then sketch prototypes (using Paint®). They compare the drawn prototype size to its intended real-life, manufactured size, determining estimated length and width dimensions, determining the scale factor, and the resulting difference in areas. After considering real-world safety concerns relevant to wearables (news article) and getting preliminary user feedback (peer critique), they adjust their drawn designs for improvement. To conclude, they recap their work in short class presentations.

The principal purpose of the task is to explore a real-world application problem with algebra, working with units and maintaining reasonable levels of accuracy throughout.

Shredded cheese blends are manufactured using a mix of specified cheese varieties. In this task, students will determine amounts of different cheese varieties necessary to produce an order of shredded cheese blend for a distribution order.