Estimating and approximating

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to race against Usain Bolt?

How might you use mathematics to improve your chances of guessing the number of sweets in a jar?

This activity challenges you to decide on the 'best' number to use in each statement. You may need to do some estimating, some calculating and some research.

How many ways can you find to put in operation signs (+, −, ×, ÷) to make 100?

Can you rank these sets of quantities in order, from smallest to largest? Can you provide convincing evidence for your rankings?

Get some practice using big and small numbers in chemistry.

How did Archimedes calculate the lengths of the sides of the polygons which needed him to be able to calculate square roots?

There are nasty versions of this dice game but we'll start with the nice ones...

Investigate the effects of the half-lifes of the isotopes of cobalt on the mass of a mystery lump of the element.

10 graphs of experimental data are given. Can you use a spreadsheet to find algebraic graphs which match them closely, and thus discover the formulae most likely to govern the underlying processes?