Barbie Bungee in the Classroom

If anyone isn't familiar with this activity, you can find the instructions and worksheet here.

This activity gets students super excited about doing math, while doing math in the process. The activity includes completing a table of values, creating a scatterplot, finding the line of best fit, finding the equation to the line (slope, y-intercept...) and predicting the number of elastics needed so that the barbie can jump off of whatever ledge you choose in your school without hitting the floor.

I have tried this activity twice in my classes: once with a class of grade 9 students and once with a class of grade 10 students. These are my observations, and tips on how to implement this activity in the classroom so that the students are focused, and everything can get done on time.


Tips:

1. Make sure you have enough Barbies so that your class can split off into small groups: (preferably 2 or 3 students per group). This way, everyone can get involved in measuring the distance the barbie falls, creating the line of best fit, etc.. without it getting too crowded. I noticed in the class I had large groups, a lot of students weren't paying attention because there were already enough people doing the measuring.
2. Get the materials ready before class! I did this for both of my classes, and it made the class go by so much smoother than if they had to grab it themselves. Also, more time to do math!
3. Keep track of time!! This is always important as a teacher, but doubly important when you want to create an activity that has a meaningful purpose. You want to leave enough time for a discussion at the end of class.

Materials:

1. Barbies (I used small barbies, but you can use whatever size you have on hand, so long as they are all the same height, so that you can compare the students' predictions)
2. Elastic bands
3. Measuring sticks/tape measure
4. Worksheets
5. Large Ziplock bags (optional, but it helped me a lot)

Before Class Begins:

1. (Optional, but highly recommended) Place a barbie, a handful of elastics, and one worksheet into each Ziplock bag: enough so that each group gets 1 Ziplock bag.
2. Place measuring sticks around the classroom where you want to groups to set up.
3. Measure the height of wherever you want the barbie to "jump" off of. Also, clear it with the principal of the school before you attempt working there! You don't want to interfere with an already planned event around the location. It should also preferably be far away from classrooms that are in session so that you don't distract other classes.
4. Write down the height on the board (or somewhere visible for all the groups)

During Class:

1. Have the students work on the worksheets, supervising as you go. 
2. Take the students to the designated location (mine was from the second floor of the school) and test out their predictions!

Near the end of class:

1. Bring the students back to class, and discuss their findings. Find out what factors could have influenced why their prediction was wrong/right?
2. Does this activity raise any other questions?

You can ask so many other questions to the class, but I found that this activity really got students discussing math in the real world, so they were asking their own questions to me, which took up most of the class.

As a Toy Story reference, one of my students wrote "ANDY" on the bottom of her Barbie's foot. Good thing the Barbies were all mine.