And You Thought Gasoline Was Expensive!

Teaching Theme of the Week

from Education World®

A chart comparing the cost of a gallon of gasoline to the cost of gallons of other liquids -- mouthwash, house paint, fruit juice, and white-out, for example -- might make the cost of gas seem manageable after all!

Subjects: Math, Educational Technology, Economics

Grade Levels: 3-5, 6-8, 9-12

Objectives
Students will:

• research the cost of a gallon of gasoline;
• calculate the costs of gallons of a variety of liquids;
• create charts showing the data they collect;
• discuss the data; and,
• use software or a free online tool to create graphs comparing the costs of a gallon of gasoline with that of five other liquids.

Keywords
calculate, COLA, cost of living, economics, equation, gallon, gasoline, inflation, liquid, measure, measurement, pint

Materials Needed

• ads from food, drug, auto parts, and/or home building supply stores
• graph creation software or access to the online Create a Graph tool

Procedure

Set Up the Activity: Have your students considered that gasoline might be a bargain when compared with the price of other liquids they consume. Take bottled water, for example. A 16-ounce bottle of water costing $1.09 works out to $4.36 a gallon. That makes gasoline look like a real bargain!

Of course, buying a gallon of water is usually cheaper than buying four 16-ounce bottles of water; but for the purpose of illustration, the bottled water example puts the cost of gasoline in perspective.

The Heart of the Lesson: Students can do this activity individually or in small groups, in class or for homework. For an in-class activity, you might do the following.

• Provide students with newspaper ads from food, drug, auto parts and/or home supply stores so they can price a gallon of a variety of liquids, such as fruit drinks, house paint, mouthwash, auto engine oil, perfume, white-out, and so on.
• Have students create charts with four columns: Liquid Product, Cost of Item, Size (Volume) of Item, Price per Gallon.
• In the first row of the charts, students record the cost of a gallon of gasoline. In the remaining rows, students enter the information gleaned from the ads for a variety of other liquids.
• Next have students use the cost of each of the other products on the chart to calculate the cost for a gallon of the product. (With younger students, these calculations could be done as a whole-class activity.)

When they complete the activity, students should share the information they collected and discuss the cost of a gallon of gasoline relative to the cost of some other things they might purchase.

Extension Activity: Students can use the data they collect to create bar graphs providing a visual representation of the data. They can use art supplies, available software programs, or the free online Create a Graph tool to create the graph.

Assessment
Grade students' chart calculations on mathematical accuracy.

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