Calling All Travel Agents! - Math Project

Calling All Travel Agents!
(Project Based Learning in Math)

In this unit, my fourth grade students worked in groups of 3-4 as travel agents to plan a weekend vacation for a family.

I began by giving the students a homework assignment where they had to interview someone at home about planning a family vacation. (See pg. 21)

Then I assigned each group to a different family description (see pg. 12-16), and asked them to brainstorm places where the family might enjoy going, based on their description. I added that they needed to stay within our state, because the vacation was during a three day weekend. (Therefore, no one required airfare. They all traveled by car.)

I gave each group a list of student jobs (see pg. 18), and let them decide what their role would be within the group. Some students had two jobs, depending on the size of their group. Groups then worked their way through the “Vacation Planning Journal” (pg. 1-11), researching as needed. I kept the finalized Budget sheet (pg. 17) separate from the “Vacation Planning Journal,” mainly because I wanted students to work slowly and carefully through the packet, without racing to get finished.

Homework assignments were given throughout the project. I’ve included a few of them (pg. 20-25) that correlate with certain parts in the project planning.

Students worked for about a week or two on the presentation part of this project. Their task was to create a Keynote presentation on the computer, based on the requirements in the rubric (see pg. 19).

Students used computers to research necessary information about the destinations, maps/routes, gas prices, miles per gallon, distance traveled, elapsed time, and other vacation expenses. They then make a Keynote/Powerpoint presentation to share with the class.