The Giant Cookie Dilemma - Gr 6 to 8 Mathematics

The Giant Cookie Dilemma:

https://illuminations.nctm.org/Lesson.aspx?id=2816 – This website does a fantastic job of breaking each step down, providing sample questions, and motivating students to complete the challenge. Three things which may be suggested for change include:

1. Make the handouts more open  ended to deepen the discussions. The handouts provided here are too specific and may not allow the students to experience some struggle
2.  Bring in a giant cookie (big success and gave students something to work towards.)
3. After learning about the 3act lesson made popular by Dan Meyers, I would think that this activity lends itself very well. The hook would be the giant cookie at the front of the class with the generic questions (questions you have, question(s) to answer and highest/lowest guess) Then moving into the Work where the students are given several questions to generate further discussions (and create teahcing moments) and then the reveal will demonstrate that it is possible and the students can all enjoy the cookie!

This activity was done at my school at the Grade 8 level as a fun yearend task. It was run during a single period but could be extended into two lessons (if you so wish).

The Problem: It’s the farewell celebrations at the school but your teacher wants you to do a little math to get the reward of the cookie. How could you cut the cookie so that each student in the class gets their fair share? (Yes – the cookie is baked the night before and brought in)

Concepts being tested –

1. Finding the area of a circle 
2. Finding radius of circles
3. Using ratios

 In the end, the students thoroughly enjoyed the cookie and  went through some great reasoning and problem solving skills along the way.

Thanks for reading,

Chris