Math Sites

Spice up math classes with ideas from these World Wide Web sites! Approximate grade levels are given as a general guide.

K-12 | Elementary| Middle School | High School

K-12

Wisconsin Model Academic Standards for Mathematics provides the complete text of new state standards for teaching mathematics.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics site includes NCTM mathematics standards and details about NCTM publications, national and regional meetings, and more.

The Math Forum is Drexel University’s comprehensive math education site. It features Problems of the Week, Math Games and Puzzles for students, Teacher Exchange , and Ask Dr. Math.

Math 2.org provides all the facts you might ever need to look up, from the formula for the circumference of a circle to the number of zeros in a nonillion.

MathMagic is a K-12 telecommunications project in which student teams collaborate via e-mail to solve math challenges.

Elementary

A Maths Dictionary for Kids provides interactive definitions for terms from abacus to zero. Animated explanations and quizzes help create an understanding of terms. For example, the entry for "number line" asks students to enter an equation, then shows the problem on a number line. The entry for "width" allows students to drag the edges of a shape to increase or decrease its width. This site comes from an elementary school in Australia, so some of the spelling will be unfamiliar for American students (like "maths" instead of "math").

This m&m's: In the Bag Graphing Activity allows students to create a graph showing the percentage of m&m's of different colors. It also links to the m&m Web site to compare their bag to the "official" percentage. M&M's® Candies, Line Plots, and Graphing is a lesson plan for grades 4-7.

Fraction Shapes provides colorful visual exercises to help students understand fractions, including online pattern blocks and fraction equations using shapes.

The World of Measurement provides brief lessons and quizzes for elementary students on the topics of length, mass, volume, time, and temperature, as well as links to additional resources on these topics.

MegaMathematics is a site from the Lawrence Livermore Lab that presents real-life math problems to elementary students. Among problems on the Web site are Games on Graphs, Untangling the Mathematics of Knots, and Algorithms and Ice Cream for All.

Investing for Kids from Thinkquest is a Web site that middle and high school students created for elementary students. It guides young students through the concepts of investing and setting financial goals and includes a stock market game for kids.

Middle School

What Good Is Math? provides a lively, interactive portrayal of how math is used every day, from shopping to art to sports to cooking.

The goal in Lure of the Labyrinth is to find and liberate the pets (including your pet) that seem to have gone missing in the odorous and mysterious place called the Tasti Pet Factory. Players will meet a group of extremely unpleasant monsters and try to outsmart them by solving puzzles. The site includes an extensive professional development section for pre-algebra teachers, with videos showing how to use the game within the curriculum. (Grades 6-8, math)

The Internet Pizza Server Lesson Plan lets students practice math skills by calculating things such as the area of a pizza or the price per slice. Students can order a picture of their pizza over the Internet.

SkyMath is a middle school mathematics module incorporating real-time weather data.

Real-World Projects from the Rethinking Schools Web site describes 17 math problems dealing with current issues important to minority students such as economic and racial discrimination and fair advertising. Seventh and eighth grade teacher Eric Gutstein describes each project with a summary of the mathematics involved, and the specific writing students had to do.

For an introduction to probability, Ken White's Coin Flipping Page allows users to virtually flip a chosen number of pennies or dimes (Canadian) again and again. Students can predict, graph results, or do other activities using this simple tool.

Tools for Understanding is a web site for educators who teach mathematics and are interested in integrating common technologies into their daily instruction. It includes ideas and lesson plans for a variety of different math concepts, brought to you by From the School of Education at the University of Puget Sound.

High School

The Rainbow Lab, from the University of Minnesota, teaches students about reflection and refraction by simulating what happens when rays of light enter a water droplet.

The Houston Area Real Time Traffic Report Lesson involves students in collecting and then doing calculations with traffic data from an Internet site. (Wisconsin students might prefer using Gary-Milwaukee-Chicago corridor data.)

Measure 4 Measure is a collection of interactive sites that can measure, calculate, and estimate for you; converting U.S. to metric measure, calculating your body’s surface area, and much more.

The Largest Known Primes explores prime numbers in great depth.

Exploring Data from the Math Forum provides ideas and resources for lessons involving collecting, manipulating, and analyzing data. Or, use the sites below to develop your own lessons and exercises.

U.S. Census Bureau Home Page

Wisconsin Climate Data

Graphs of global trends from the United Nations (UN)

Country statistics from the UN

Amounts of pollutants released in communities

State Health Facts Online (downloadable data for spreadsheet or database)

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