In case you are trying the MARS MAP Classroom Challenges for the first time, it is recommended that you read the Brief Guide for teachers and administrators before you get started.
This lesson is designed to help students develop strategies for solving optimization problems. Such problems typically involve scenarios where limited resources must be used to greatest effect, as in, for example, the allocation of time and materials to maximize profit.
Before the lesson, students attempt the problem individually. You then review their work and formulate questions for students to answer in order to improve their solutions.
At the start of the lesson, students work alone answering your questions about the same problem.
Students are then grouped, and engage in a collaborative discussion of the same task.
In the same small groups, students are given sample solutions to comment on and evaluate.
In a whole-class discussion, students explain and compare the alternative solution strategies they have seen and used.
Finally, students revise their individual solutions, and comment on what they have learned.
To help you assess how well students are able to interpret a situation and represent the constraints and variables mathematically.
To help you assess how well students are able to select appropriate mathematical methods to use.
To help you assess how well students are able to explore the effects of systematically varying the constraints.
To help you assess how well students are able to interpret and evaluate the data generated and identify the optimum case, checking it for confirmation.
To help you assess how well students are able to communicate their reasoning clearly.