Project Instructions
This collaborative project gives students the opportunity to gather and analyze data about different participating states throughout the country in the form of clues.  Using deductive reasoning skills, students identify a classroom's location by process of elimination.  All throughout this process, the students use fractions to calculate how many of the states were eliminated with each clue.  As the students gather their clues, perform calculations and modify their predictions, they may record their progress in individual journals.

Once students have, to the best of their ability, identified the state where the classroom in question is located, students make a verbal presentation to their own classmates explaining how they formulated their conclusion.  This presentation is in fact, their final answer, after which, the mystery state is revealed.

Once the mystery state is revealed, your classroom may choose to identify the exact location of the school in question by using more clues or by the triangulation method.  Using the knowledge about the state that the students have identified, the Create-A-Plate Lesson gives them a chance to apply their new found knowledge about this state and express their artistic skills by designing a license plate to be submitted to the project web site. 

The project has been developed for elementary level students, but can be adapted for use in higher level classrooms.  The project will encompass a wide range of subject areas including math, science, social studies and language arts.

To help guide your students through this project, please refer to the individual daily lesson plans in the Teacher Area.  You may use as many of these lessons as needed.  In order to support as many classrooms as possible, flexibility is given to the teacher to adapt the lessons and activities to suit particular classroom needs.  If you are interested in the project, please read the project requirements below. 

Project Requirements
The project will begin the first week of March and run for four weeks.  It is important to know that although the project runs for one month, only a portion of the day need be devoted to this project. 
 

March 1 - 9	Collect individual state question information for submission to project web site.
March 10	ALL DATA MUST BE SUBMITTED TO PROJECT WEB SITE.
March 12	All clues available to project participants on project web site.
March 12 - 23	Clue sets revealed to students.  Students solve Great State Mystery.
March 26 - 30	Students identify exact location of classroom.  Students may submit state license plates to project web site.
March 31	Project ends.  License plates available for viewing.

!! See the Teacher Area for a comprehensive project schedule and suggested daily lesson plans and activities. 
(Teacher Area Link in blue column area)

How to Participate
Use the registration link below to sign your classroom up to participate in the Great State Mystery.  Please do not sign up until you are confidant that you will be able to participate and obey all project deadlines.  Other classrooms will be counting on you.