Addison County is sponsoring a special New Year's celebration for its youngsters. It is anticipated that 1,000 students your age will attend the celebration. Grand Union® is willing to donate 1,000 sodas for this special occasion. They need you to place the order. Conduct an investigation to determine what flavor soda you should order and the quantity of each. Do your best to ensure that all 1,000 kids will get a soda they will like. Write a letter to Grand Union® thanking them for their contribution, letting them know what your order is and the process you used to ensure that all 1,000 kids would get the soda flavor of their choice.
This task was given to students before the new year. They had experience with surveys and sampling, but few had formal instruction with ratios, fractions and percents. This task assesses how well students understand the concept of sampling, collecting, organizing and displaying data, as well as drawing conclusions. It also assesses to what degree students have a concept of ratio. Students will take a survey of the students in their class (or a sample of their class). Most students will extrapolate the data to 100 or 1,000 to find the solution. Students with a less developed understanding of probability and ratio may focus on the majority of students selected or not consider sample size. 2 hours Drug and alcohol education, commercials and advertising, measurement (what is the volume of the liquid donated), holiday celebrations and traditions. It could also lead to a discussion of how airlines and other food services determine the number of different entrees to bring on flights. For students who would be overly challenged by this task, you could simplify the numbers from 1,000 to 100 and/or limit the soda flavor choices. Experience in conducting surveys is essential for students before beginning this problem. I adapted the task in the following manner for a student in my class with severe special needs: Mrs. McKegney wants to have a New Year's party for the class. She is planning to buy a special treat for each person in our class. Find out what kind of soda she needs to buy so that each person gets a soda that they like. Write a note that shows how many sodas of each flavor she needs to buy.
- Calculators
- Graph paper
- Computers
The solutions will vary.
This student was only able to do an adapted version of the task, dealing only with 100 youngsters. The student bases his/her conclusions on popularity and then randomly assigns numbers of sodas. Since orange had the most, the student ordered half orange sodas, even though orange only totaled 30 percent. The student did create an accurate chart in which to organize his/her information, but uses little or no mathematical language.
This student uses an insufficient sample size on which to base his/her decisions (10). The student does not document his/her work, but does create a mathematical representation to communicate his/her solutions. There are some gaps in the student's explanation, such as the conversion of the percentages to 1,000, but the student does make an attempt to solve the task using ratios and percentages.
This student attempts to define sample size and age. In many cases s/he successfully converts data to percentages. S/he creates a mathematical representation to communicate his/her solution and uses a variety of math terms, symbols and notation. S/he also explains his/her reasoning and processes.
This student addresses sample size as a component of accuracy, creates a visual representation to communicate a solution and uses percentage, decimals and fractions to find a solution. The student successfully summarizes results of his/her survey and extrapolates data to 1,000 people. The student generalizes experiences with probability and addresses more than three varieties of soda (deals with open-ended student responses).
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