Grade Level: 6,7,8

Goals:

*The students will write their own word problems dealing with time zones

*The students will solve a complex word problem dealing with time zones

Materials:

*Word problem

*Paper

Content Areas:

*Math

*Science

*Language Arts

Concepts:

*Problem solving

*Time zones

Procedure:

1. The students will be given a word problem about time zones to solve. The word problem should be in the form of a short story. (An example called Claire's Journey, is provided) Explain to the students that they have to take into account the travel time when they figure out what the time is when the final destination is reached.

2. Next, the students will share their answers to the word problem with a partner. The students should reason with each other if they don't have the same answer as to why they think their individual answer is right. The students should try to decide what the correct answer is.

3. The teacher will then discuss as a class the answers that the students came up with. Help them to get the right answer if no one has gotten it.

4. Then, the students will write their own short word problem dealing with the time zones. Remind the students that they should have an answer to the word problem.

5. Have the students exchange their word problems with another student. Give them time to solve the problems.

6. After exchanging the word problems, talk with the students as to why writing and solving the word problems was a challenging project to undertake. What makes working with time zones so confusing?

Evaluation: The students will be evaluated on two things. First, the completion of the word problem. The word problem will just be turned in to see if the students actually did the work or not (ex: show their work and give justification for their answer). The second thing that will be evaluated is the word problem the students create. The students_ word problems will also be turned in after the problems have been exchanged to see if the students really understand the concept of time zones or if they need more work. In order to have this assignment accepted, the word problem must be original and include three different calculations. The students also need to include the correct answer when they turn it in. The teacher, therefore, will record the completion of each assignment when it is turned in to him/her.

Approximate Time: 2 hours

Resources:

~Fitzpatrick, Gary. International time tables. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1990.

~Steck-Vaughn Company. Maps, Globes, Graphs (teacher's edition), 1989.

~Kalusky, Rebecca. Success with Maps (teacher's edition). New York: Scholastic Inc., 1985.

Extension:

-Teacher could do a few more lessons dealing with the idea of time zones using the resources listed to further the students_ knowledge of time zones.

-The teacher could use other lessons from the workbooks listed under resources.

-The students could write a summary about the partner work they did, explaining how they got their answer, if it was helpful, etc.

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