Jasper Woodbury Algebra Series immerses grades 5–8 students in interactive video adventures that foster algebraic reasoning through engaging, real-world challenges. Featuring pilot Jasper Woodbury, these three ~15-minute episodes teach rates, graphs, and linear equations, promoting critical thinking, collaboration, and data analysis skills. Aligned with Common Core standards, the series includes teacher guides and student worksheets for teacher-led debriefs and extension activities to seamlessly integrate into middle school math curricula. Key episode highlights include:
- Working Smart: Students use data from the story to create tables and graphs to answer questions involving car rental costs, fuel costs, rates and times of travel, and overtaking someone on a trip who has a head start; students then prepare to answer questions from their teacher and simulate the game show conditions of the adventure, building foundational algebra skills.
- Kim's Komet: Students examine rate data involving distance and time and find a common rate to compare the performance of different cars; students also determine the average speeds for Kim's car when started at different heights on the ramp and decide what information they need to determine average speeds and how they might get it, enhancing data interpretation.
- The General is Missing: Students collect data from the adventure and interpret the algebraic messages sent by Grandpa to locate the kidnappers' hiding place on a map; students must create SMART Tools to measure the speed of sound, compare various rates of travel, show the relationship between a circle's circumference and its diameter, and determine the height of a hill by the horizontal distance traveled and the rate of the hill's incline, fostering multi-step problem-solving and logical reasoning.
Each episode includes three CD-ROMs (story disc, teacher disc, teacher manual disc) with integrated video content (no videotape or DVD included, despite a teacher manual misprint). Available for PCs running Microsoft Windows; Mac OS X is not supported. View the Episode Comparison document below for detailed information on each episode. This series equips educators with dynamic tools to inspire mathematical confidence and real-world application in algebra classrooms.