Illustrative Math Alignment: Grade 6 Unit 1

Honey bees not only produce a tasty treat, they also help pollinate flowering plants that provide much of the food throughout the world. So, when in 2006 bee colonies started dying out, scientists recognized a serious problem. Analyzing statistics from honey bee production allows for a mathematical analysis of the so-called Colony Collapse Disorder.

This is part of a collection of videos from the Algebra Applications video series on the topic of Variables and Equations.

Why do rivers meander instead of traveling in a straight line? In going from point A to point B, why should a river take the circuitous route it does instead of a direct path? Furthermore, what information can the ratio of the river’s length to its straight-line distance tell us? In this segment the geological forces that account for a river's motion are explained. In the process, the so-called Meander Ratio is explored. Students construct a mathematical model of a meandering river using the TI-Nspire. Having built the model, students then use it to generate data to find the average of many Meander Ratios. The results show that on average the Meander Ratio is equal to pi.

This is part of a collection of videos from the Algebra Applications video series on the topic of Variables and Equations.

In this Investigation we get a historical overview of equations. This video is Segment 1 of a 2 segment series related to Variables and Equations.

In this Math Lab a hands-on activity has students comparing the diameter of a circle and its circumference. This video is Segment 2 of a 2 segment series related to Variables and Equations.

Watch this video about variables and equations. (The transcript is included.)

Video Transcript

From the mathematics of old Babylon and Egypt, to the mathematics of ancient Greece,

China, India, the Islamic world, and all the way up to
the Renaissance and the present, equations have played
a central role in the development of algebra.

But algebraic equations haven't always been written in present day symbolic form.

In this Math Lab we look at an area model for expanding the product of two binomials. This video is Segment 4 of a 4-segment series related to Variables and Equations.

Use the properties of operations to multiply numbers.

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