Middle school students' mathematical understanding benefits from connecting mathematics to other content areas in the curriculum. This month's activity explores the issue of the scarcity of freshwater, a natural resource (activity sheets are included). This activity concentrates on the critical areas mentioned in the Common Core State…

Motivating middle school students to learn can be challenging. One proven method for doing so is through an integrated curriculum. Educational philosophers and curriculum theorists have long noted the benefits of an integrated curriculum, which recognizes that the subject areas within the curriculum are connected to one another and to the real…

Presents methods for using literature to develop algebraic thinking in an environment that connects algebra to various situations. Activities are based on the book "Anno's Magic Seeds" with additional resources listed. Students express a constant function, exponential function, and a recursive function in their own words as well as…

Relates the personal story of how a 13-year-old used previous knowledge of matching words in English to construct her own understanding of mapping in mathematics as it pertains to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics' (NCTM) recommendation that students use and value connections between mathematics and other disciplines. (AIM)