These 15 instant maths ideas, ideal for use as starter questions, extension question or probing questions to assess understanding, require students to perform a practical experiment in order to estimate a value for pi, describe a circle over the phone, find a connection between the length of the radius of a circle...

This excel program contains a series of interactive spreadsheets related to the equation of the circle. The first sheets enable the student to alter the radius and centre of the circles centred at the origin and elsewhere. The program allows the student to view the...

This task is designed to assess how well students understand ratio and areas.

A diagram is shows a circle with one square inside and one square outside, both just touching the circle. The first task is to work out the ratio of the areas of the two squares.

A circle is then inscribed inside of the...

In this activity, students are presented with a series of different sized equilateral triangles each containing a number of circles, each of radius one unit. Students are required to find the exact area of each triangle.

The activity is extended into three dimensions by considering the volume of shapes...

When you have a set of data the first thing you need to do is to check it out and eliminate any obviously wrong or false data. This is called “Cleaning the Data”.

This resource from CensusAtSchool provides a...

This toolkit from Plus magazine and Arctic Survey Education looks at models of climate change and sea ice growth.

The toolkit can be downloaded as a whole or as the individual components, which are:
• Arctic supermodels - background article
• Modelling ice thickness - worksheet and worksheet...

This resource explores the application of flow charts, algorithms and mathematical based careers. Student pairs take it in turns to roll a die and travel along the board, racing through primary school, GCSE revision and work experience towards a successful career.

The resource...

Because of the shape of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, it is farther away from the Sun in July than it is in January. Still, we have colder days in January than in July. How is this possible? Through this mystery, students will investigate the orbit of the Earth around the Sun and its influence on solar energy...

In this Nuffield investigation these resources from AMP, co-funded by the Clothworkers and Nuffield Foundation, students investigate how many positive integers are less than and co-prime to any given positive integer. This activity requires some confidence with the co-...

This resource from the IET Faraday programme, supported by MEI and Tomorrow's Engineers, provides students with the opportunity to explore geometric constructions through the concept of machine programming. The resource explores how computer controlled machinery could construct shapes,...

Act 1

A container in the shape of a trapezium based prism...

This problem features a coil of tinplate being stored on a mandrel. In the first problem, students are presented with the diameter of the mandrel, the height from the floor, the width of the coil and the density of the steel. The problem is to calculate the maximum coil weight. A worked solution is included with...

Act 1

A video shows coins being placed into a change...

Act 1

A video shows two equal sized glasses, one contains...

Act 1

A video shows an inflatable swimming pool filled with Cola. How many bottles of Cola did it take to fill the pool?