This project has two activities.

              The first, The Chocolate Bar Maker, has students designing the
               largest possible rectangular chocolate bar within given conditions.

              The second activity contains a collection of challenges from an article,
             A Gallon of Everything, in the March 2002 issue of Mathematics Teacher.
           This measuring activity, authored by C. Ray Hall, is a compilation from ideas
        submitted by Pat Vennebush, PBS Teachline, Alexandria, Virginia and
     William D. Jamski, Indiana University Southeast, New Albany Indiana.
.

     Your task is to create the largest rectangular chocolate bar possible with a perimeter of 50 cm.

1. What was your first estimate for the dimensions of your rectangular chocolate bar?
2. What was the area of your first estimate?

Try other possible dimensions and find the area. Create a t-chart to display your patterns.

3. Describe some of the patterns that you see.
4. What happens to the area of the rectangle when the dimensions of the perimeter change?
5. What are the dimensions to produce the largest chocolate bar?

By C. Ray Hall

At the Superamerica service station on Third Street and Amherst Avenue, a gallon
of regular self-serve gasoline was selling recently for $ 1.529.

Across the street, a 16-ounce cup of steaming McDonald's coffee was going for 99 cents.
Drive-through customers idled away precious milliliters of $ 1.529 gasoline, waiting for
coffee that, in effect, costs $ 7.92 a gallon.

Look at it this way: Would you waste a little of something (gas) to get something else that
was worth 5.18 times as much (coffee)?

The recent dramatic rise in gasoline prices has the populace fuming. But, all things
considered, a gallon of gasoline is one of the cheaper gallons of anything you can
buy these days. Clorox bleach costs about the same as a gallon of self-serve.

Consider: Big Red soda will cost you near $ 2. A gallon of Evian water (water!) will set
you back as much as a gallon of McDonald's coffee.

Your task in this activity is to find the cost of a gallon of seven different things that you encounter
in your daily life, or fantasy life. Paint, Perfume, Pepto-Bismol.

Of course, most of the stuff you find will not be sold in gallons. So when you can't find a gallon
of something, take what you find and do the math.

Determine the price per gallon of seven different items. Write each item in a table that includes
the original price and then the price per gallon. For example:

STP Brake Fluid                    $ 3.15 for 12 ounces                    $ 33.60 per gallon

What do you think would be the most expensive item per gallon?