Sharing our Findings: Chocolongo Bar

PACKAGING THE CHOCOLONGO BAR

SCENARIO:

"Since the public is becoming increasingly concerned about the impact that food packaging is having on the environment, the president of the Chocolate Company, The Sweet Bite, has called a crisis management meeting of her strategy team. Sales of the company's signature chocolate bar, the Chocolongo, have plummeted since a recent article named the company as the largest producer of packaging waste in the chocolate bar industry. This is very distressing news for the company. Before the appearance of the article, the Chocolongo Bar had always met with rave reviews because of its unique long, thin shape.""The president wants to continue providing her loyal customers with the same volume of chocolate while reducing the amount of packaging used. Therefore, her strategy team must determine a different format for the bar. To preserve some similarity between the original Chocolongo Bar and the new one, the team leader requires that the new bar have only a single wrapping. No additional sleeve is to be used. The team must provide proof that the selected format will result in the least amount of packaging. A member of the strategy team has asked our class for assistance with this challenge."

THE TASK

"Your team has 36 interlocking cubes, which represent the total volume of a Chocolongo Bar. Your task is to work with the 36 interlocking cubes to find all other possible formats for the new and improved bar. For shipping and storage purposes, the final product must be in the form of a rectangular prism."“You will be working in teams of four. As a first step, you will each work independently to contribute to this group blog in the comment section just below, noting every possible format for the new Chocolongo Bar and identifying the total surface area. During sharing, you will compare your possibilities with those of your team members and determine which format best meets requirements."

Group 6: Conclusion

Our math question was the faces of a cube are labels 1, 2,2,3,4 and 5. The number cube is rolled 114 times how many times would you expect the number 2 to appear. To solve this question what our group did was first we broke down our question in fractions and percentages then we got the idea of if there were 6 sides of the cube and 2 is labeled 2 then we made a fraction of 2/6 but we simplified it down to 1/3.So we took that as the chances of landing on 2. Then from 1/3 converted it into a percentage of 33.3 % from there we realized that if you multiplied 35 x 3 you would get 105 so we thought that if we kept making the number bigger and multiplying it by 3 we could slowly get to 114 then our final number was 38 x 3 and we got 114. Our back up strategy was to divide 3 into 114 and we got 38 so we knew that the answer was 38 so if we rolled the cube 114 times the number 2 would appear 38 times. At the end of our discussion re found out that this question was trying to get us to use fractions and percentages.

35x3= 105
36x3=108
37x3=111
38x3=114

3/114=38

Group Agreement

Students were given the opportunity within their math teams' to brainstorm qualities of what makes a group collaborate together effectively. They generated some ideas under each of the categories "Looks Like", "Sounds Like" and "Feels Like" and presented it to the whole class. The chart posted is a combined list of agreements for groups to refer to and follow through to ensure everyone feels that they are able to contribute and have their suggestions valued.

Group 6

This is the Math Investigation Task question assigned to your group. You may click on the question for a full screen view and then click back to the blog view to begin contributing your ideas and thoughts in the comment section below this post.

Math Investigation Task

STEP 1:
As a team, you must engage in online discussions (outside of the instructional day) prior to teaming up to complete a math investigation.
STEP 2:
You will participate within your group blog to provide support, suggestions and strategies on how to approach your assigned math investigation.
STEP 3:
Once each member has had the opportunity to participate within the blog to prepare for the meeting session, you will then be given class time to begin your collaborative task to problem solve the math investigation onto chart paper as a team.
STEP 4:
Once your team has completed and solved the math investigation you will then choose a media presentation format (podcast, photostory) to share your findings and demonstrate your understanding, as well as connections to the relevance of this learning.
STEP 5:
The presentation will then be posted within your group blog for further discussion and reflection from other teams. Good luck and enjoy :o)