Welcome back to another post all about math. This time i’ll be talking about our most recent unit which was all about Linear Graphs. Linear Graphs aren’t new to us PLPers though, as we started to learn about them before in our science energy unit (we had to create linear graphs to model energy production). Now it was time to really focus down on the math behind linear graphs. For this unit we had to create linear graphs to show the costs of cell phone plans overtime.

We started the unit by learning about the different math equations used to make proper linear graphs. This took me a while to understand but after working on worksheets and learning about it in class I started to understand the concept. Once we worked through all the practice it was time to begin the project.

Since this was a group project I decided to partner up with Reid. We started to look at different cellphone plans and we quickly found out that we had really no interest In basing our project around them. Reid and I thought of something else that could work… Since were both really interested in shoes and we spend our free time marveling over exclusive and expensive pairs we thought it would be a good idea to do our project around the price increase of certain pairs. We pitched our idea to Mr. Gross and he approved saying it was a good idea to base the project on something we would enjoy doing. We started our research with our new pitch: research four different models of shoes, find our their starting price and price increase overtime and then estimate which shoe will be the Best Buy in the future.

We started off our research by going on an app called StockX, which is an online clothing and shoes market. From there we found out the four shoes that we would be basing our project off of. We chose the “OFF WHITE Jordan 1”, “Yeezy Calabasis”, “Jordan 1 ROYAL”, and the “Yeezy 500”. Yeah, I know, shoes have some pretty weird names… First we had to find our their starting prices, then we had to find out how much they were worth for every month since October last year. One we had all the data it was time to create the graphs.

We plotted out each shoe and their price increase, and then we found out the average of how much each shoe increased in price over the months. It was really interesting to see how much the price of shoes can change in a matter of months, and it was difficult to find the average increase. Once we had all the data and math finished it was time to create our presentation. We used Keynote to compile all of our pictures and graphs together and then we presented our findings to the class. We found out that the Jordan 1 Royal had the highest price increase, and although it is not the most expensive shoe that we researched, in the future it will pull ahead into the #1 spot.

This project was really interesting, and I learned a lot about graphing and finding out price increase overtime. I also feel like Reid and I worked well together and it was fun to combine our interests into a project which we both enjoyed. Math can be a very useful tool to call upon in everyday life and this can be shown through this project. Whenever I am looking to make an investment in anything I can called upon the skills that I learned doing this project and make the best educated guess on how much the product will be worth in the future.

 

Thanks for reading!