Post-EOG activities: Student products

In this project, students will become entrepreneurs. They will have a business that makes items with 3-dimensional shapes. They will receive various tasks that will require that they make decisions as any other business owner would have to do.

A lesson plan for grade 7 Mathematics

By Geneva Williams

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Related topics

• Learn more about geometry, mathematics, measurement, percents, and volume.

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Learning outcomes

The students will demonstrate knowledge of various math topics discussed during the year.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

10 Hours

Materials/resources

• paper
• pencils
• ruler
• markers
• yellow pages, business journals, any magazine or newspaper with business names and ads in them

Technology resources

• access to desktop publishing software (optional)
• spreadsheet software
• word processing software

Pre-activities

Students should review formulas for area of basic 2-dimensional shapes, volume of three-dimensional shapes, the concept of combinations, creating bar graphs, finding percentages of a given number.

Activities

1. Students should decide what they would like to name their business, where will it be located (city and state), what will they be producing, and to come up with a catchy slogan for their company. Give the students ads from yellow pages, business journals, magazines or newspapers. Have them look for interesting ways that businesses try to draw in customers by the descriptions of their company. Also, have them pay attention to names of businesses.
2. Students should be given a business profile sheet. On that business profile, you should have generated 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarter earnings for their companies. Each student should have completely different amounts since their companies are different. Have the students select the appropriate graph to display the data paying close attention to labeling of the axis and chart title. Also have students calculate the mean and median of the earnings.
3. Tell the students that their business will open up a new restaurant/cafeteria. They will serve 3 different sandwiches, 3 fruits, 2 desserts and 2 beverages. Have the students pick the sandwiches, fruits, desserts and beverages they will be serving. Now have them make a menu displaying the items. Have the students calculate how many possible combinations a person could pick if they had to pick exactly one sandwich, one fruit, one dessert and one beverage. Have them list the combinations.
4. Students could have a small, medium or large building for their business. Provide them with three different dimensions for their possible business. Tell them that their building is shaped like a rectangular prism. Randomly select the building size for the students then give them the measurements. You could elect to have students pick out of a hat that has small, medium and large in an even distribution on different slips of paper.

   Length = Small, Medium and Large Measurement (feet)
   Width =________’(feet)
   Height=________’(feet)

5. Have the students calculate the volume of their building being careful to leave on units.
6. Now tell the students that they have just had a major disaster at their building. The fire sprinklers came on and filled the building 1/4 of the way with water. How much water is in the building?
7. Tell the students that the water company will forgive 25% of the water bill. If the cost of the water is $0.15/cubic foot, how much will the water company not charge you and how much will you owe them.
8. Have the students write a letter to the insurance company requesting them to pay the remaining amount. The students must describe in their letter why the sprinklers came on, how much the water company will pay and how much is left for them to pay. Have the students write in business format and type if possible. Show the students a sample of an appropriate business letter and have them sign their letters in ink.
9. Tell the students that they are being asked to present their business expenditures. Give them the following breakdown of their expenses.

   TOTAL EXPENSES = 2 x Average of the Quarterly Earnings

   Telephone	2%
   Salaries & Benefits	30%
   Building Rental	12%
   Utilities	10%
   Furniture	16%
   Equipment	20%
   Miscellaneous Supplies	10%

   Have the students calculate the dollar amount spent on each bill rounding to the nearest dollar. Have the students generate a circle graph to display the data in percentage form and a bar graph to represent the data in dollar amounts. Suggest that the students use crayons, not markers, to color the graphs unless they are using computers.

Paper Portfolio or Electronic Portfolio

Have students generate a PowerPoint presentation to show other students their company. Require the students to have at least clip art in their slide. If you have a digital camera, the students love to see their own picture in presentations.

• Slide 1: Title slide (Student Name as title, Teacher Name as subtitle)
• Slide 2: Business Information (Task 1)
• Slide 3: Owner Information (All About Me type of slide) Have students tell their name, and a little bit about themselves (family, future plans, etc.)
• Slide 4: Earning Profile (Task 2:Graph of earnings)
• Slide 5: Restaurant Menu (Task 3: List items offered in their restaurant and tell the total number of possible combinations that could be picked by a person eating in the restaurant)
• Slide 6: Business Expenses (Task 5: Graph of Expenses)

Assessment

You may choose to give students rubrics on each individual task and then a different presentation rubric. Or you may choose to give students comments on tasks as they are turned in and only grade the final portfolio. This would encourage student improvement and give students the opportunity to see if what they are doing is what you expect.

Supplemental information

Some students will be far more advanced than others if you are doing the PowerPoint presentation. My suggestion is to write down steps in simple terms to show them how to select/change backgrounds, add a new slide, select/change the layout, adding the chart and how to put in a picture. I have put a good web site tutorial for PowerPoint on the links.

If you are not doing the electronic portfolio, then you should definitely set clear guidelines as to how the reports should look and provide some creative ideas on how to put them together. Ellison machines may help spiff up some of their covers or pages.

Comments

This is a good lesson to apply the skills students have acquired over the past year in preparation for the EOGs. Students are amazed about how much they have learned and enjoy applying their knowledge in a simulated real-world project.