That's the way the cookie crumbles!

A high school math teacher in New York had his students measure and weigh Oreos, Double Stuff Oreos, and Mega Oreos to find out whether the larger cookies really are double or mega stuffed. This is a creative application of data and measurement concepts to the "Real World", and I'm sure it was incredibly fun too! It reminds me of an activity I saw in our 4th grade math class last year, in which students were challenged to find out the width of a single piece of paper. They were able to do so by stacking 10 or more papers together, measuring the height of the stack, and then dividing by the number of pieces of paper. By posing interesting questions that engage students in thinking about everyday objects in their lives in new ways, teachers are able to develop students' appreciation of and motivation for mastering academic skills and concepts.

In other news, a school district in Delaware has built the world's largest Lego tower. While this activity probably led to increased community cohesion and provided the experience of overcoming a seemingly impossible challenge based on the scale of the tower, I'm left wondering, what's the instructional purpose? There are wonderful opportunities for measurement and engineering in this project, but the articles I've seen don't delve into any of that. I hesitate to judge based on the reporting alone, but I would love to hear the people involved speak to the educational value of the project. If they were simply pursuing "A dream of eternal Lego fame", all the time and energy and effort could have gone into something that would make a real difference in the lives of the students and community.