This activity is about planetary climate. Once familiar with the factors that determine a planet's surface temperature, learners will use an interactive spreadsheet model of a planet's atmosphere to determine if greenhouse gases, luminosity of the source, the distance of the planet from the source and the albedo of the planet can be manipulated so that the average surface temperature on Mars or Venus could support human life. Learners will then be asked to make some conclusions about these methods and suggest improvements for the spreadsheet model (see related resources for link to this model). The activity requires use of Microsoft Excel software. This is Activity D in the fourth module, titled "How do Atmospheres Affect Planetary Temperatures?," of "Earth Climate Course: What Determines a Planet's Climate?."

This is a presentation for day three of a three-part series on Implementing a High Quality Resource with a focus on Mathematical Modeling,.

The mathematical modeling process often begins with messy real-life problems that require students to formulate questions, make assumptions, and construct a mathematical model to describe a real world situation. Wisconsin Math Council is happy to launch our Wisconsin Modeling Challenges. Each challenge contains the context and a strategy to launch the modeling task so that students at any grade level can identify questions and make observations. Each challenge also contains specific grade level modeling tasks related to the context. WMC hopes that these challenges will engage your learners in experiences to become “flexible users of mathematics who see how mathematics can be used to understand their world and the world around them.”

The Context for Challenge 1: Meals on Wheels delivers approximately 221 million meals each year to 2.4 million seniors. Meals are delivered around lunch time by volunteers who also conduct wellness checks.

This resource is intended to provide information about Mathematical Modeling and how it was used in my classroom over the past few months. It contains the basics of math modeling as well as resources to implement a specific making task.