A few months ago, we went on a field trip to Grand Rapids. We went to the Grand Rapids Public Museum, and the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum. I thought it would be a neat idea to do a math lesson based around the fuel it would cost to get us up there.
For this assignment, the students would have to get to Google Maps on their Chromebooks in order to find the mileage (I would also have this projected on the Smart Board as well). First, the students would have to go to the "Get Directions" icon, and put "Bridgman Elementary School" for the starting destination and "Grand Rapids Public Museum" for the B part. Then, they would have to trace the path created by the directions using the "Measure Distances and Areas" tool to find out how many miles it is (it's around 90, we would probably round to that anyway). Next, I would tell them how many miles to the gallon the bus gets on the highway (let's say 8), and what the current gas prices are (they were $3.95 on my way home from work today). So, the students would have to calculate how much gas would cost to go 8 miles, then multiply that number by 11 (close enough to 90) to see how much it would cost one way, then double it to figure out the round trip.
Once we figured that out, I would enhance the lesson by suggesting that I-196, the highway we would take, would be shut down, and we would have to go through Highway 131 to get there. Showing them the alternate route to take, I would let them use the same tools to figure out how much fuel would cost for a round trip using that route.
This particular mini-lesson would go well with the rates lesson in our Everyday Math Curriculum. It would be a real-life application for the students, and it would be one more lesson they could use a map to enhance learning.
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