Great Mail Race

In order for me to help my students learn Language Art, Math, and Social Studies, we participate in a Great Mail Race every year. This activity combines many activities in order to add a little enjoyment to  the learning process.
   Initially, we find schools which we would like to include in our mail race. We use schools who have participated in the past and include new ones to take the place of those teachers who didn't respond the year before. (I used to do this, but in the future, my students will do the search.)
Two more things are needed to be completed before we mail our envelopes. The first is to decide what we want to include in our survey. We try to keep it very simple so that we don't want to make more work for our cooperating teachers. The last activity that we need to do before our letters are mailed is to write a letter of introduction, outlining the specifics of our project.
Then the most painful waiting process begins. The one important thing that the students need to realize is that whether or not  they get a response does not reflect on them personally. All the results will be shared by the whole class.
Two months later, we are ready to begin analyzing the results. The surveys are examined and tabulated. The students take the surveys and tabulate fractions. These fractions are then turned into decimals which in turn, are changed to percents. The percents are then used to build circle graphs. Hopefully, this information will make its way onto our website.
Another fun thing about this activity is that some of our answers will come back from other students across the United States. This may lead to a lasting pen pal relationship.
Click below to see some results of past mail races.
1999/2000
2000/2001
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