This resource, produced by the Centre for Teaching Mathematics at the University of Plymouth, is designed to provide short problems to stimulate discussion of mathematics amongst A level students and between students and their teachers; and to provide some longer investigations which search more deeply into the...

This resource, produced by the Centre for Teaching Mathematics at the University of Plymouth, is designed to provide a series of short problems to stimulate discussion of statistics amongst students and between students and teachers; and to provide some longer investigations which search more deeply into the...

This activity, from Shirley Fall, contains ten linked problems which are intended to lead to students developing a rule for integrating functions of the form y=ax n where n not equal to -1. Problem 1 begins by exploring the area enclosed under a straight line y=2x+3 from x=0 to x=a for varying values of a, leading...

In this resource from Shirley Fall, students are presented with a general straight line y=mx+c and are shown that the gradient of the line between any two points that lie on the line is always equal to m. Students should be encouraged to explain the proof to check...

This activity, from Shirley Fall, requires students to use and interpret function notation, sketch graphs using key points, explore the common transformations of translate parallel to the y axis, translate parallel to the x axis, stretch parallel to the y axis from the...

The objectives of this activity are to expose common misconceptions about the nature of forces and to introduce Newton’s Laws of Motion. Students are asked to place the headings, true, false, unsure at the top of their paper and place the accompanying cards into the appropriate column, giving reasons for placing it...

Climate change has increased heat waves and drought on land, and doubled the probability of marine heatwaves around most of Africa. This resource contains a PowerPoint presentation, a graphing skills activity drawing and interpreting line graphs and a spreadsheet containing data. This is a good source of material...

This resource contains two interactive excel programs which enable students to investigate cubic functions and the relationship between the factorised form and the graph.

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This resource provides examples of solving problems using Fermi Estimates. These examples are similar to the ones covered in the resource "Estimates From Limited Data". The tasks may be suitable for group and internet access may be beneficial.

‘A secret of bees’ is a series of 7 problems that looks at an interesting feature of the family tree for bees. The series shows how to take a complicated problem and break it down into manageable parts. It is recommended that the sheets are given to students one at a time.

Initially a family tree for bees is...

‘Ball bouncing’ is a series of 7 problems that looks at what happens if you put a tennis ball on top of a basketball and then drop them both. This is done through mathematical modelling. The series shows how to take a complicated problem and break it down into manageable parts. It is recommended that the sheets are...

This problem serves as an introduction to the ideas of Fermi problems. The question posed is ‘how many dump trucks would you need to move Mount Fuji, a major mountain in Japan?’
The topics required to complete this problem are calculating the volume of a pyramid, working out mass from density and volume, and...

This question asks us to consider a person opening a burger bar, doing all of the cooking themselves, and then estimate how much space should they rent?

The main topics required are rates (number of burgers per hour that one person could cook, number of customers per hour), and areas. 

In this resource from CensusAtSchool, students are asked to apply their knowledge of the Poisson distribution to real life data in the context of a school problem. This resource is good at contextualising and reinforcing understanding of the Poisson distribution, it requires students to consider developing a...