In this Model Eliciting Activity, MEA, students will create a procedure for ranking high school basketball players. Students are given statistics for each player and are asked to recommend the best player to play for an all-star team after determining the free throw, three-point, and field goal percentages. Students write about the procedure used to make their decisions. In a twist, students are given additional data to determine the mean points per game.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. MEAs resemble engineering problems and encourage students to create solutions in the form of mathematical and scientific models. Students work in teams to apply their knowledge of science and mathematics to solve an open-ended problem, while considering constraints and tradeoffs. Students integrate their ELA skills into MEAs as they are asked to clearly document their thought process. MEAs follow a problem-based, student-centered approach to learning, where students are encouraged to grapple with the problem while the teacher acts as a facilitator. To learn more about MEA’s visit: https://www.cpalms.org/cpalms/mea.aspx