Growth and decay functions can be used in real-world situations to model population growth, growth of cancerous cells in the body, the amount of money in a bank based on principal and interest, the number of cell phones in circulation in the United States, etc. This hands on activity allows students to experiment with M&M's to model their own growth and decay functions. The goal of this activity is for students to work hands-on with m&m’s to create graphs of exponential growth and decay, and create functions that model their data. The objective for this lesson is, students will understand that exponential growth and decay models can be used to portray cancerous cells in the body, population growth, the amount of money in a bank based on principal and interest and many more real-world situations. Allowing students to work hands on with M&M's to model how exponential growth and decay works will make for a more meaningful learning experience.
The materials needed for this activity are pumpkins of various sizes and a scale to weigh the pumpkins. In front of the students will be a bunch of different pumpkins of various sizes. The students are to pick out a pumpkin and determine the weight of the pumpkin with the use of a scale. The students will then be given a worksheet that will ask them to create a linear equation to solve for the total cost, the students will evaluate linear equations given certain restraints, and the students will solve these linear equations. The goal of this activity is to have students understand linear equations and their use in everyday scenarios.