Student Task Sheet: Family Vacation
You live in St. George, Utah, and your family will be taking a road trip next summer. You will be going several places and some places more than once. Your parents want you to figure out the total number of miles you will be traveling over the course of the trip. Use the mileage chart or map to help you determine distances and keep track of mileage as you go.
Step 1: Grandma is going on the trip with you. You have to pick her up in Kanarraville. When you get to her house, she asks you to run her to the store in Cedar City to pick up her prescription. You stop back at her house to get her luggage, then head back to your house. How many miles did you travel so far? Write an expression showing how you computed the number of miles. Can you write it a different way?
Step 2: You are then ready to leave and drive to Las Vegas, Nevada where you will stop for lunch. The longest drive is next as you go to Los Angeles, California and then on to Murietta to stay the night at your hotel. How far is it from your home to Murietta? What expression would you write to show how you figured that out? What expression could you write to show how far you’ve traveled so far today in total? Can you write it a different way?
Step 3: You stay in Murietta for four nights. For the next three days, you travel back and forth to San Diego to see different sites around that city. When you get to the city, you park your car in the same parking lot and take a bus around town each day. How many miles will you drive during those three days? Write two different expressions showing how you calculated the number of miles.
Step 4: After the third night in the hotel, you get up early and take the same route as before to get home. What is the total number of miles you traveled during your trip? What different expressions could you write showing how you found the total? Justify why your answer is correct and why your expression helps you find the answer.
If you complete steps one through four, add two new destinations in California to the chart or map with mileage labeled (you can either find real cities and research the miles OR make up imaginary cities and mileage). If the trip extends for three days, continue the trip and accumulate the mileage with expressions written for each day.