The 1999-2000 North Carolina Testing Program
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The Sharks Team teachers meet often to discuss goals and objectives for their courses and how they can integrate knowledge and skills to allow students to see connections of the disciplines. Currently the team is working with their students on how to analyze, explain, apply, interpret, and evaluate information in response to open-ended questions. Students have learned about rubrics and how they are used in assessment. All eighth graders in North Carolina will take the Open-Ended test on November 2, 2000. |
Mr. Gurley uses a DVD image to set the scene for an open-ended question in math. |
Olympics Unit of Study - Open-Ended
8th Grade Sharks Team
Answers by Students
The students read the passage, "The 2000 Olympic
"Green" Games" then answered these questions to help them to learn how to
answer Open-Ended questions.
Question 1
The effort to keep the Games green began in 1992 with the Winter Games in Lillehammer,
Norway. The chart below shows the tons of trash recycled during Olympic Games starting in
1992.
| Olympic Games and Locations | Tons of Trash Recycled |
| 1992 - Lillehammer, Norway | 145 |
| 1996 - Atlanta, Georgia | 275 |
| 1998 - Nagano, Japan | 178 |
| 2000 - Sydney, Australia | 205 |
What is the total number of pounds of trash that was
recycled at each site? What was the grand total?
Explain or show how you determined your answer.
Question 2
Green frogs and Golden Bell frogs, both endangered species, live where the new sports
arenas were built. The new environment protects the frogs from many of their predators.
When counted, it was found that there is a population of 800 Green frogs and 1200 Golden
Bell frogs. It is projected that the Green frog population will increase 12% and that the
Golden Bell frog population will increase by 14% in the year following the Olympic Games.
What will each of their populations be at the end of the year if the projections are
correct?
_____ Green frogs
_____
Golden Bell frogs
Explain or show how you determined your answer.
Question 3
For the past three years, 4 million trees were planted at 500 sites around the nation of
Australia, the sites commemorate Australian Olympians. Each site had the same number of
tree added.
How many trees have been added to each site? __________
Explain or show how you determined your answer.
Question 4
Several farmers donated a total of 400,000 worms to help reduce, reuse, and recycle waste
by living off the garbage produced by the cafeteria. At the end of the games it was found
that they were successful in creating rich compost that filled 25 containers that were 10
feet long, 5 feet wide and 4 feet high.
How many cubic feet of compost were created from the garbage? _____________
Explain or show how you determined your answer.
Question 5
Most of the food at the Games was served on reusable ceramic plates to reduce the
amount of garbage generated. It was calculated that each of the 25,000 ceramic plates was
reused 175 times.
What is the total number of plastic/Styrofoam disposable plates that were replaced by the
reuse of ceramic plates? ____________
Explain or show how you determined your answer.
Question 6
Sydney Olympic Park and the Millennium Parklands, where many of the sporting events were
held, were once strewn with garbage. Rather than move the garbage to another location, it
became part of the landscape. All the waste was collected into four large mounds and then
covered with clay and soil. The final heights of mounds are indicated in the following
table.
| Mound 1 | Mound 2 | Mound 3 | Mound 4 |
| 12 meters | 15 meters | 20 meters | 12 meters |
Calculate the mean, mode, and median of the mound
heights.
_______ mean
_______ mode
_______
median
Explain or show how you determined your answer.
