National Parks Road Trip Math Project – Unit Rate & Proportions – 7th-8th Grade

Description

Want to encourage your students to see the value of math in everyday life? This math project allows students to apply what they know while making choices about where to travel, what car to drive and what snacks to pack.

In this real world math project, students plan a trip to U.S. National Parks of their choice. The will use a scaled map to calculate distance and drive time, choose a car based on fuel economy to calculate the cost of gas and compare unit rates of their favorite snacks at different stores to prioritize their snack budget.

This is a fun way for 7th or 8th grade students to put their knowledge of proportions, unit rates and distance formula to work in a way that gives them choice & real life practice.

(If you have interest, you could even use this with advanced 6th graders who understand scale and unit rates)

Although part of the fun is allowing students to research different National Parks and choose the ones they most want to visit, there may not be time. So you will also find a page of ‘sample itineraries’ with 3 different road trips.

Students can then use choose one of the 3 set itineraries rather than mapping out their own road trip. This will save time, and also make grading easier, as these pages include an answer key.

Math Skills Needed for this Project:

• Finding actual distance on a map using the scale factor
• Calculate travel time given speed and distance (d = rt)
• Calculate unit rates to compare options (miles per gallon & unit prices at the grocery store)
• Calculate with rational numbers
• Stick to a budget (students must ensure they have enough money for gas and snacks)

(Optional: provide calculators to help students who may get bogged down in lots of computation).

Ways to Use the Project:

If you would like to complete the project in class, students could work with partners to split up the work and discuss the choices.

However, you could also assign this as an individual project at the end of your proportions & unit rate chapter, to be completed at home.

This could also work as an extra credit project, early finisher challenge or end-of-year application project.

Included in the Download:

• Instructions/Tips for teachers
• Cover page for the project
• Student handout pages to guide them through all 5 parts of the project
• National Parks “Trip Report” summary page for students to record all their final calculations & answer discussion questions
• “About the Parks” pages, where students can share pictures and fun facts about the parks they choose to visit
• Grading Rubric with assigned tasks/points values
• Blank Grading Rubric, allowing you to create your own criteria/point values
• Answer keys where applicable (some answers will vary, based on student choices)

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Please Note: This product is a downloadable pdf file. No physical product will be shipped to you. In addition, this resource is for personal use in the home or classroom only. You may not share, distribute, alter or post this resource online in any way. Thank you for your honesty!