Vampires: Fact or Fiction?

Subjects

• Mathematics
• Computer Skills

Grade

• 4-10

Brief Description

In this activity, students will use mathematics and Microsoft Excel to determine how many vampires are in the world, starting at the very beginning. Students will then take their data and compare it to real-world statistics to determine if vampires are really a fact or fiction. 

Objectives:

Students will

• create Excel sheet and interpret graphs.
• problem-solve using real world data.
• make predictions and analyze data.

Materials Needed:

• Internet access
• Microsoft Excel (Note: teacher can choose to do this manually or on their own for a bulletin board idea)
• printer (if wishing to assess student work)

Lesson Plan

In "Do Vampires Really Exist?", students are asked to know multiplication by 2 up to 100 and create a chart using Microsoft Excel to determine how many vampires there are in the world. Students will then reach a final number of about 34 billion vampires by Week 35. Students will then go to a website provided by the U.S. Census Bureau's World POPClock, which gives up-to-the-second projected count of the world's population. At the end of the lesson, students will learn about "proof of contradiction."

Assessment

Students will be assessed on

• completion of the assignment based on class work and printed worksheet (see below)
• successful work within small groups and in whole group discussion

Lesson Plan Source

Microsoft

Article by Lorrie Jackson and Kassondra Granata, EducationWorld Contributor

Explores relationships among numbers; the meanings of operations and how they relate to one another; fluent computation; creation of reasonable estimates; evaluation of statistical data (mathematics)

Offers opportunity to delve into demographic data (social studies)

Requires students to enter data into spreadsheet; compute data and create a graph (digital literacy; computer science)