Business Application of Functions and Scatter Plots

Team Members:
Marion Loiola, SUNY Orange (Accounting)
Deborah L. Hewitt, Chester Academy (Math)

Final Results:
The project was much more successful than I anticipated. I was concerned that the students would not have enough of a business background to pull it off, but I was happily proven wrong. 

We started with a pre-assessment where they had ten questions to answer based on a model of what they would be doing. Grades on this ranged 75 to 100. Some students did it quickly to get it over with and others did a good job. They were given this as a homework assignment.

Next we had 2 days in the library. The first was to look up a company and get the financial statement. Students chose a company. This is where I was very impressed. They were very excited and had a great time looking for a company to invest in. They chose companies that they liked the products of. They were all successful in obtaining the information they needed. The second day they used Excel to make their graphs and started their writing.

The rest of the project they completed at home. I gave them a week to hand it in. The results were very good. Based on our rubric I had seven students receive a 4, ten received a 3, and two received a 2.  

We spent another half a period where students presented their results. All felt they really liked doing this type of assignment and learned a lot. I am going to add this project to my curriculum for Pre-Calculus.