December 7, 1941

Today is the day to remember an event that happened 72 years ago.  Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, killing both military and civilians while trying to cripple the American fleet.

Its sometimes difficult to find activities designed specifically for the math classroom.  Most of the ones I've found are for history or English but that has not stopped me at all.

This particular day has lots of possible activities which you can provide the data for, or you can have them find the data for the project.

1.  Its easy to find the number of people killed in each branch and civilians on December 7, 1941.  This information can be turned into a chart to show the information visually or it could be turned into an infographic with the graph.

2.  Another graph could be done showing those from each branch and civilians who were wounded during the attack.  You can find the information from the Honolulu paper showing how many and the ages of civilians who were killed by bombs or bullets from the attack.  Again, its easy to create a graph showing age distribution.

3.  Number and types of ships that were damaged or sunk. The Japanese wanted to sink aircraft carriers but there were none in port that day.  Instead they got battleships, destroyers, etc. This exercise could also include the number of planes destroyed or it could be done seperately.

4.  Find out where the mini-subs departed from the mother subs, when they left and when they arrived at pearl harbor.  This is enough information to calculate their average speed or you might find the average speed to determine how long it took them to travel the distance.  Furthermore, its possible to calculate the volume of the two man mini-subs.

5.  Another activity dealing with distance is to find out where the Japanese planes took off from, find the distance, and how long they took to get to Pearl Harbor to determine the average rate of speed. 

6.  Find out how many total planes the Japanese sent to bomb Pearl Harbor and the number of each type of plane to create a graph.

7.  Students can also create an infographic containing all sorts of numerical information on the attack on Pearl Harbor. 

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.