In the middle grades, students have lots of experience analyzing and comparing linear functions using graphs, tables, symbolic expressions, and verbal descriptions. In this task, students may choose a representation that suits them and then reason from within that representation.

In this task students use linear equations to solve a real world problem.

The purpose of this task is to give students practice in reading, analyzing, and constructing algebraic expressions, attending to the relationship between the form of an expression and the context from which it arises. The context here is intentionally thin; the point is not to provide a practical application to kitchen floors, but to give a framework that imbues the expressions with an external meaning.

The purpose of this task is to introduce students to exponential growth. While the context presents a classic example of exponential growth, it approaches it from a non-standard point of view. Instead of giving a starting value and asking for subsequent values, it gives an end value and asks about what happened in the past. The simple first question can generate a surprisingly lively discussion as students often think that the algae will grow linearly.

This word problems helps students learn to build the biggest three-digit number given any three numbers between 0 and 9 to use as digits.

In addition to the purely geometric and trigonometric aspects of the task, this problem asks students to model phenomena on the surface of the earth.

This task requires students to use the fact that on the graph of the linear function h(x)=ax+b, the y-coordinate increases by a when x increases by one. Specific values for a and b were left out intentionally to encourage students to use the above fact as opposed to computing the point of intersection, (p,q), and then computing respective function values to answer the question.

This task gives a variet of real-life contexts which could be modeled by a linear or exponential function. The key distinguishing feature between the two is whether the change by equal factors over equal intervals (exponential functions), or by a constant increase per unit interval (linear functions).

This task asks students to consider the linear and quadratic functions appearing on a coordinate plane.

This is an instructional task that gives students a chance to reason about lines of symmetry and discover that a circle has an an infinite number of lines of symmetry. Even though the concept of an infinite number of lines is fairly abstract, fourth graders can understand infinity in an informal way.

This task provides students a chance to experiment with reflections of the plane and their impact on specific types of quadrilaterals. It is both interesting and important that these types of quadrilaterals can be distinguished by their lines of symmetry.

This task is intended for instruction, providing the students with a chance to experiment with physical models of triangles, gaining spatial intuition by executing reflections.

This is a challenging fraction comparison problem. The fractions for this task have been carefully chosen to encourage and reward different methods of comparison.

In this number line task students must treat the interval from 0 to 1 as a whole, partition the whole into the appropriate number of equal sized parts, and then locate the fraction(s).

This task can be implemented in a variety of ways. For a class with previous exposure to the incenter or angle bisectors, part (a) could be a quick exercise in geometric constructions,. Alternatively, this could be part of a full introduction to angle bisectors, culminating in a full proof that the three angle bisectors are concurrent, an essentially complete proof of which is found in the solution below.

In this instructional task students are given two inequalities, one as a formula and one in words, and a set of possible solutions. They have to decide which of the given numbers actually solve the inequalities.

The goal of this task is to have students appreciate how the different constants (P0, K, and r) influence the shape of the graph.

This problem introduces a logistic growth model in the concrete setting of estimating the population of the U.S. The model gives a surprisingly accurate estimate and this should be contrasted with linear and exponential models, studied in ``U.S. Population 1790-1860.'' This task requires students to interpret data presented.