All of my classes (Honor Algebra II, Accelerated Algebra II, PreCalculus and Integrated III Math) have all had units on exponential growth, logarithms, regressions and related topics. I downloaded a wonderful project from TeachersPayTeachers.com that harnesses the kids' imaginations while they show me their math. The project involves warning the President of the US that there is little time to develop a vaccine to combat the zombies that are growing at an alarming rate! 140 zombies have been reported and they are infecting new recruit zombies at the rate of 3 new zombies for every 5 zombies already infected. The students must report their findings to the president before the whole world is overcome! Data given to them is the current population of the world and they must compute the number at day 7, day 14 and calculate what date is the last possible day the vaccine can be used because there is no population left that is able to use it.
The kids are really excited and already I have a Manga comic book being created, a song being written, Excel spreadsheets flying .. and lots of math. The Honors students are figuring out the constant for the continuous exponential growth (with e) and using logarithms. Some are using an online calculator (www.meta-calculator.com/online) to do exponential regression to get the formula. Others are photographing their TI 84 screens to capture the output to "hand in".
We are using shared folders in Google Docs for Education (with me as owner and they as editors). I can see everything they do! Loving the control and the fact that there is no paper - even my Ipod touch can view their work!!!! It was also great that the English classes have already been doing this so they were productive right away with Google Docs.
The best thing - not only am I getting terrific math work from these kids - but every kid is engaged; they are laughing, having fun and producing good math while at it !!! I can't ask for anything more!
Hope the Zombies don't get me too!
The project costs only $2 and is available at TeachersPayTeachers: Well worth the money!
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