Can you tell from its opening weekend how much Star Wars: The Force Awakens will do in the long run? How much will it make in theaters? This activity can be used anytime and is especially timely when there is a new blockbuster movie released. We originally created this activity for the Hunger Games, but we've left blank spaces in our chart for students to add their favorites or for future movies. The data for this activity can be found at: boxofficemojo.com. Just click on any movie and look for this info: In this activity we are using the "Opening Weekend" amount and comparing that to "Total Lifetime Gross (Domestic)." In this updated activity your students can try to predict how much money the Star Wars: The Force Awakens, ($238,000,000 opening weekend in US) will make at theaters. This task is accessible for any student who can plot points on a grid, so it could be used for students as young as 4th graders. Older students can create a line of best fit and equation to model the data and make predictions. By plotting and analyzing the data students decide if they can, in fact, predict the future. The activity, Excel file and solutions are below. We also made a lesson through Activity Builder from Desmos, which if you have the tech is an amazing way to run the lesson.
The Activity: OpeningWeekendStarWars.pdf
CCSS: 8.SP.1 , 8.SP.2 , 8.SP.3 , HSS.ID.B.6
For members we have an editable Word docx, solutions, and an Excel data sheet with charts.