Rich Learning Tasks

For more information visit

www.mathletics.com

Fill ’er Up

Questions to facilitate the learning

•

Could the jugs hold the same amount even though they are not the same height? Why or why not?

•

Was it easier to predict the height of the jug on the left or the jug on the right? Why do you think that?

•

Once you knew how high the water went when 2 cups were poured into the jug, was it easy to predict for

3 cups? 4 cups? Why?

•

Did your predictions get better?

Scaffolding the learning

•

Do you think the jug on the left will hold more than 3 cups? Why do you think that?

•

Let’s pour from the cup once and see what happens. Now can you predict what happens if we pour in

2 cupfuls? 3 cupfuls?

Extending the learning

Students might be given a chance to use one of the alternative jugs and do the same predictions as for

the original two jugs.

What’s the point of this task?

This task helps students consider units of capacity and fosters proportional reasoning by asking students

to relate the sizes of two capacities. The initial question about which jug holds more is designed to help

students realise they have to look at more than one attribute when considering volume/capacity: it is about

both height and width. To bring out this point, point out that one jug flares out.

Having students predict the requested heights is a way to have them invest in their thinking. Once a

student predicts, he/she usually wants to test the prediction to see if it is correct. By making several

predictions, students learn to refine predictions.

Measurement