How Do You Stack Up?

Robert Foote                   Walt Disney Magnet School
                               4140 N. Marine Drive
                               Chicago IL 60613
                               (312) 534-5844

Objectives:

Students will estimate the number of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters in 
 a plastic bag.
Students will build stacks of each coin.
Students will find the thickness of a penny, nickel, dime and quarter after 
 measuring their stacks.
Students will measure to the nearest centimeter using a ruler.
Students will determine how high a stack of $1000 is in pennies, nickels, dimes   
 and quarters.

Materials needed:

4 plastic bags                  rulers
486 pennies                     250 nickels
470 dimes                       73 quarters
chalk 

Strategy:

Have four volunteers hold up four bags with pennies, nickels, dimes, and 
quarters.  Have each class member write down on a piece of paper which bag has 
the most coins and which has the most money.  Then give the bags to different 
groups to count.  Write the results of each count on the board.  Have the group 
with the most coins split them in half so each group can have a group of coins. 
Next, have each group (pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters) predict how many of 
each coin they can stack without falling.  Write predictions on board and then 
let the groups stack.  Have students imagine a stack of coins $1000 high.  How 
high would that stack reach?  Give the following statistics as a comparison: A 
basketball player is 2 meters(m) tall, the ceiling of most buildings is 4 m, the 
height of a 10 story building is 40 m, and the height of the Sears Tower is 
440 m.  Students may graph each of these and then graph where each stack would 
fall.  To calculate the thickness of a penny, nickel, dime and quarter, have 
students measure their stacks and divide by the number of coins.  They will then 
have a good approximation of the thickness of each coin.  

Performance Assessment:

Using either the measured thicknesses or the standard thickness for each coin, 
have students determine how high a stack of 50 pennies, nickels, dimes and 
quarters would be. 

References:

Page, David and Philip Wagreich.  Maneuvers with Nickels and Numbers. Dale 
Seymour Publications, 1990.