Yummy Math, Lots of Cookies, and My Battle with Sweets...

So...some of my fellow math coaches introduced me to Yummy Math (www.yummymath.com). This site is so cool, and relevant to "The Movement." On the page is a banner that reads, "We provide teachers and students with mathematics relevant to our world today." This site is so good, it's only natural for it to be called "Yummy Math." It is full of math from real places, real people, and real problems (not a factory, or textbook software program). Teachers, parents, and students can access problems by interest, grade level, and by focus. This is exactly the direction we should be tailoring our instruction and learning experiences to. This is good stuff. Yummy, actually.

I have been trying to eat healthier. So I guess it would only be right for me to come across a problem entitled, "A Whole Lot of Cookies."

So, this is how it goes...

Whole Lot of Cookies!

Jennifer Fairbanks from Hopkinton, MA sent a picture of the cookies that she baked in 4 hours using 13 eggs and 5 cups of sugar.

Questions:

1. About how many cookies are there? What techniques did you use for counting the cookies?
2. About how many cookies made per hour?
3. About how many cookies is it possible for her to make per day?
4. How many eggs or how much sugar per cookie?
5. About how much value if sold at a bake sale?
6. About how much profit could we make from a bake sale?

Now CHEW on This... How much more would students benefit from engaging in a problem like this than completing 50 procedural problems from a textbook using algorithms?