Teacher guide reSolve: Authentic Problems: Bottle Flipping

TLF ID M024874

This sequence of four lessons explores fractions and statistical reasoning through conducting a series of fair tests to answer the question 'What fraction of a bottle needs to be filled with water to be the best for bottle flipping?'. The lessons focus on building understanding of fractions and collecting, organising and presenting data to answer the research question. Each lesson is outlined in detail including curriculum links, vocabulary, materials needed, sample answers, discussion points and student resources. This sequence is part of the reSolve: Maths by Inquiry special topic 'Authentic Problems'.





Educational details

Educational value
  • This resource is extremely valuable for the year 3 mathematics content description about modelling and representing unit fractions. Students are engaged in an extended inquiry to explore what fraction of a bottle is best to ensure a successful 'flip', expressing this as a range of unit fractions, comparing the relative sizes of the fractions and given opportunities to link this back to the volumes of the bottles.
  • This resource is also of value for the year 3 content descriptions about measuring and comparing objects using familiar units of length and capacity. Students are encouraged to express their data as both fractions and as capacity measures. They are also challenged to explore how these relate to the height of liquid in their bottles and how the shape of the bottle affects this relationship.
  • The resource is also very valuable for the content descriptions in the data representation and interpretation substrand in year 3. Students are given multiple opportunities to collect, organise and present data as they work through the inquiry process.
  • The resource is also valuable for supporting the Numeracy general capability as students collect, record and display data as tables, diagrams, and graphs throughout the inquiry.
  • This resource is also of pedagogical value as it supports teachers in building an inquiry-focused learning environment with authentic application of mathematical skills and understandings. The unit uses a learning and teaching model with four phases: Discover, Devise, Develop and Defend. The unit aims to develop content knowledge as well as assisting students to understand the process of inquiry.
Year level

3

Other details

Contributors
  • Contributor
  • Name: Education Services Australia
  • Organization: Education Services Australia
  • Description: Data manager
  • Address: VIC, AUSTRALIA
  • URL: http://www.esa.edu.au/
  • Copyright Holder
  • Name: Australian Government Department of Education and Training
  • Organization: Australian Government Department of Education and Training
  • Publisher
  • Name: Australian Academy of Science
  • Organization: Australian Academy of Science
  • Description: Publisher
  • URL: https://www.science.org.au/
  • Resource metadata contributed by
  • Name: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Organisation: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Address: AUSTRALIA
  • URL: www.esa.edu.au
Access profile
  • Unknown
Learning Resource Type
  • Online
Rights
  • © Australian Government Department of Education and Training 2018. Unless otherwise indicated, this material may be used in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.