Funding for the VITAL/Ready to Teach collection was secured through the United States Department of Education under the Ready to Teach Program.
Investigations/Scott Foresman (2006)
Arrays & Shares, Session 7 and 8, pp. 35- 41
Different Shapes, Equal Pieces, pp. 2-37
Loading StandardsStudents are asked to share certain numbers of objects among different numbers of people. They begin with unit fractions and move to sharing multiple objects (a) among multiple people, (b) in which a < b, to produce fractions less than one. This CYBERCHASE activity is motivated by two video clips in which the CyberSquad has to share objects fairly in order to overcome obstacles and challenges assigned to them by Zeus as they try to recover Pandora's Box, which was stolen by their nemesis Hacker.
30 minutes
Three Equal Shares QuickTime Video
Feed That Dog QuickTime Video
Handout 1: "Three Equal Shares"
Handout 2: "Feed That Dog"
Assessment: Level A
Assessment: Level B
Answer Key
One 10" piece of string for each pair of students
1. Distribute Handout 1: "Three Equal Shares" . Have students work in pairs to complete the activity.
2. The handout shows a wreath. Give each pair of students a piece of 10-inch string as long as the wreath, and ask them how to use the string to help them divide up the wreath to share it equally among three persons.
3. Tell students that they will watch a video clip in which the CyberSquad solves the same problem. Ask them to pay particular attention to the way the CyberSquad solves the problem.
4. Show students the Three Equal Shares QuickTime Video .
5. Ask the students to compare their methods to that of the CyberSquad.
6. Tell the students that in video clip 2, the CyberSquad meets up with a hungry three-headed dog on their quest to rescue Pandora's Box that was stolen by Hacker. To get away safely, Atlas, who was holding up the sky, tells them to give each head an equal amount of apple. They have two apples for three heads.
7. Distribute Handout 2: "Feed That Dog" and ask the students to predict how much the CyberSquad should give to each head of the three-headed dog to make sure that each dog gets the same amount of apple.
8. Then the students should watch the second clip, Feed That Dog QuickTime Video , and again pay close attention to how the CyberSquad solves the problem. Afterwards, ask them to compare their methods with the CyberSquad's method.
Assessment: Level A (proficiency): Students are asked to find out how to divide up various single objects to share evenly among different numbers of children, and to name the corresponding unit fractions.
Assessment: Level B (above proficiency): Students are asked to find a way to divide three pizzas evenly among ten children.
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