The Microsoft website has a number of resources for educators incorporating software into various lessons. This particular lesson is called "Making Money From Lemons." This is a fun lesson that combines math skills with new technology skills, specifically in Excel. Students must make predictions and calculations, thinking logically about customer behavior and everything that might affect it. I thought this would be a great activity because once you complete the virtual project with the class, you can set up an actual lemonade stand and have the students really connect with what they are learning. There are plenty of ways to expand this lesson into other subject areas as well; students can write stories about their experience with the lemonade stand, use chemistry to figure out the best sugar to lemon ratio, and design posters and flyers that will attract the most customers. I just thought that this lesson was a great example of how to seamlessly incorporate software and technology into the classroom.
This is a not-quite-perfect web version of the spreadsheet that Microsoft provides in the lesson plan.
This idea looks really cool. I really like the multi-dimensional approach. This lesson plan covers far more than just math and excel, but branches into all kinds of subjects. The practical applications you list seem like they'd really get the kids focused and involved. It would be a great way to engage them in all sorts of learning all while building relationships among classmates. Overall this lesson looks like a fun idea grounded in some much needed concepts.
ReplyDeleteI looked over the instructions at Microsoft's website and saw the spreadsheet(your link "This" points to a file on a computer's hard drive, so I couldn't open it), and I thought this idea would be easily modified to track sales of anything in any grade level. I was thinking of those chocolate candy bars with almonds we used to sell in high school (for $2) as a fundraiser. We sold those in school and around town. Students selling fundraiser items today could modify this spreadsheet by changing the criteria for what they're selling, and they could track how their sales work in various locations, times and weather conditions, and really use the information to drive sales up.
ReplyDeleteKirby that is a wonderful use of this program. I liked that you could use it as a market analysis. I think the students would be able to change most of this to anything they wanted.
ReplyDeleteIf you want the link, I came across this one, http://www.microsoft.com/education/makingmoney.mspx.