Math Project: Per Cents in the Real World
Central Middle High School
Note to parent(s): You are encouraged to help your child find appropriate materials, but please
allow them to assemble their own poster and write their own materials. You may be able to give
them some uses that you make of per cents. The conversation between parents and children on
this topic is a part of the educational experience.
Introduction: This project will be equal to a chapter test grade, and is very important to the final grade. Students need to collect references to per cents in sale pages of the paper, ads
for cars (buy and/or lease), ads for real estate mortgages, per cent increase or decrease of stock
prices, etc., per cents used in news stories, charts, graphs, etc. The more different ways in which
you can find per cents used, the better. Also acceptable will be printouts from Internet articles
and web sites. A poster with less than four different types of percent usage will not get full credit.
First part: Poster
Choose the articles and other materials that will most effectively show a variety of uses of per
cents. Arrange and mount these in as appealing way as you can, thinking about how your
materials would help another person to see the variety of per cent references that are used in the
business world..
Second part: A folder/ notebook
The folder may contain additional articles, pictures, etc. that would not go on the poster, but help
to carry out the purpose of the poster. Students also need to describe their conclusions about
what they have found, and the significance of different percentage references on the poster. In
addition to explaining the poster, students may also want to make up some problems using actual
advertisements or information from their articles. The folder will be graded on the quality of
content, not just how many clippings have been found. Neatness, readability, correct spelling,
and organization will enhance the grade, while the absence of these could cause the grade to be
lower.
Bonus: A bonus of ten points will be added to the lowest major test grade for a student that can
provide an example in which an advertiser's percent of discount is not calculated accurately in
examples given by the advertiser, and the customer is not really getting the discount that is
advertised. This example needs to be presented separately, and not attached to the poster or
folder.
Have fun and do a good job.
