Math and Star Wars

  Star Wars, the first movie was released back in 1977 to huge audiences.  It made enough to lead to two more movies before a break.  Eventually the three movies covering the time before the originals were released.  Who can forget JarJar Binks with his bounciness and ability to drive adults crazy?  Now we are up to the 2nd of the last three in the 9 movie concept.  And - The series has spurned two other movies, Rogue One and Han Solo both giving more background to the Star Wars universe.

Fortunately there is a math activities available via Yummy Math to use to analyze the net profit based on production costs and world wide gross.  The activity also brings into account the idea of inflation and how the costs were different in 1977 vs now.  Back then a Hershey bar was only 20 cents rather than the $1.00 of today.  Students are introduced to inflation calculators so they understand the concept of in 2018 dollars when they see the comment.

We always want to incorporate reading into our math classes so students become better at interpreting what they read. There is this great article which does a statistical analysis of the different worlds found in the Star Wars movies.  They used Graph Theory to analysis the information to reach certain interesting conclusions.  For students such as mine who hate to read, you can create a sheet to accompany the reading so they look for specific information or the questions could require some mathematical calculations and conclusions based on the information.

Mathematic shed has a variety of activities for a variety of ages.  Some require solving equations while others require students to propose a hypothesis on what a certain number might represent.  There is also an infographic on the cost of the Death Star, students can use to find the answers to questions you create.  There are some for adding basic numbers for elementary students but I ignored those because they are a bit young for my students.

Then this site has a nice activity for creating a Star Wars Galaxy similar to the activity students do in the gym to set up the solar system.  The good thing for my students with this activity is that it requires students to convert from metric to standard which is something they struggle with.

This site has links to 15 activities based on Star Wars including a coordinate plane activity, fraction activity,  and drawing R2D2 which some of my students would enjoy.  Although many are geared for elementary students, a few are geared for older ones.

I may have to have a sub for the first couple days of class this year so I may set up a unit starting with one of the movies, followed by some of these math activities to ease my students back into work.

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.

Star Wars Math

  With the release of the newest Star Wars Movie recently, I decided to check into what math is available using it.

First off, I heard that Star Wars has grossed over 1 billion dollars in just a few days time.  You could have students take the average cost of a ticket and figure out approximately how many have seen the movie so far.

Second, I found the Mathematical Shed that has some Star Wars Math.  It has some things for elementary but it was the inforgraphic on the cost of building the Millennium Falcon most interesting.  Students could easily research the size so they can calculate cost per square foot.  In additon, they will have to convert the cost from British pounds to American dollars. 

In addition, there is a presentation on the cost of building the Death Star which includes the staffing requirements.  Think about the fact that once its built, they have to pay people to run it. Even if its the military, they still get paid.  Then students could figure out the cost of supplies based on current food costs, etc. 

Toward the bottom are other activities for students.  One is a game called Race to the Death Star which comes in a downloadable, editable form and has eight problems students can work their way through.  Most of the problems are based on the original Star Wars Movies but some of the problems are nice.

There is also a game using characters from the Star Wars movies which requires players to convert between scientific notation and standard numbers.  In addition, there is a pod racing game, a coordinate grid exercise and a bunch of Legos activities. 

Another site, Manghammath, offers several Star Wars activities in a 39 page downloadable activity packet.  The packet provides a lovely review for a Pre-Algebra or Algebra class so they can review classifying numbers, decimals, etc.

I even found free classroom posters based on Star Wars to use in school. The first rule under the 8 Mathematical Practices of the Jedi Masters is "I can solve problems without giving up."  The thing I work so hard with my students on.  If they perceive the problem as too hard, they give up without trying.   I think I"ll download these posters and hang them in my room. 

Check these out if you want something a bit different in your classroom.