Math Under the Sea: The Green Ribbon Worm

Critical Thinking.  It takes work.  
Collaboration.  It takes practice.
Together, we are better.


We practiced these skills as a crew recently.  In our worm study we came across a green ribbon worm that lives on the ocean floor and can be as long as 100 feet.

I posed these questions:

Well, I suggested that we use something we've learned about this year.  Non-standard ways to measure things.  For instance, our bodies...
We know that 1 foot = 12 inches.
How if the average 1st grader is 4 feet tall, how many inches long would that be?

They went to work. They got a feel for how many inches long they are.  And an idea of how long this worm would be.


Time to get a visual on this.
They know that correct measurement has to be end to end! 
So they became ribbon worms!


We had 16 children at school that day. 
We began adding the 4ft. of children together.  And we determined that 16 children would be only 64 ft. long! 

They were funny here...they decided more children would have to lay down end to end, but they only had 16.  Where would they get more children?  

Finally, one of them realized that they could move the children from of the front of the line to the end and keep going that way.  So fun to watch them puzzle this out.  I stayed out of it!

These are the kind of critical thinking math problems that the children love.  Authentic.  Fun.  Collaborative.

I challenge you to do something like this at home.
When you do, share it with us. We can learn from each other.