In this lesson from the Math Assessment Project (MAP), students are given a mock poster that claims that “In just 18 months, this female cat can have 2000 descendants”. Students are given information like kitten gestation, maturation, litter size, average litters per year, etc and asked to determine whether the 2000 descendants is realistic.

Students work on their own and then in groups during the lesson. The lesson also includes samples of “student” work for your students to evaluate. Finally students fill our a “How Did You Work?” sheet to help them evaluate the models they developed.