1. Teacher Guide
This lesson is designed to teach kids to ask a critical thinking question that you can’t just put into a search box to solve. To do that, we encourage them with smaller questions that search can help them answer. Make sure that you read the notes for each slide: they not only give you teaching tips but also provide answers and hints so you can help the kids if they are having trouble.
Remember, you can always send feedback to the Bing in the Classroom team at You can learn more about the program at bing.com/classroom and follow the daily lessons on the Microsoft Educator Network.
Want to extend today’s lesson? Consider using Skype in the Classroom to arrange for your class to chat with another class in today’s location, take a Skype lesson on today’s topic, or invite a guest speaker to expand on today’s subject. And if you are using Windows 8, the panoramas in the MSN Travel App are great teaching tools. We have thousands of other education apps available on Windows here.
Nell Bang-Jensen is a teacher and theater artist living in Philadelphia, PA. Her passion for arts education has led her to a variety of roles including developing curriculum for Philadelphia Young Playwrights and teaching at numerous theaters and schools around the city. She works with playwrights from ages four to ninety on developing new work and is especially interested in alternative literacies and theater for social change. A graduate of Swarthmore College, she currently works in the Artistic Department of the Wilma Theater and, in addition to teaching, is a freelance actor and dramaturg. In 2011, Nell was named a Thomas J. Watson Fellow and spent her fellowship year traveling to seven countries studying how people get their names.
This lesson is designed to teach the Common Core State Standard: Number & Operations—Fractions CCSS.Math.Content.3.NF.A.3.b Recognize and generate simple equivalent fractions, e.g., 1/2 = 2/4, 4/6 = 2/3. Explain why the fractions are equivalent, e.g., by using a visual fraction model.
CCSS.Math.Content.4.NF.C.6 Use decimal notation for fractions with denominators 10 or 100. For example, rewrite 0.62 as 62/100; describe a length as 0.62 meters; locate 0.62 on a number line diagram.

2. What fraction of all of the total brown bears in the United States live in Alaska? How could you express this amount as a fraction, decimal, and percent?
© plainpicture/Cultura
Having this up as kids come in is a great settle down activity. You can start class by asking them for thoughts about the picture or about ideas on how they could solve the question of the day.

3. What fraction of all of the total brown bears in the United States live in Alaska? How could you express this amount as a fraction, decimal, and percent?
You want brown bears? Alaska’s Katmai National Park has them. It’s probably one of the best bear-watching places in the entire United States. But the park and preserve offer so much more besides bears. A true wilderness area, little of Katmai’s 6,395 square miles are developed in any way to accommodate visitors. But for seasoned outdoor-types, a bounty of nature awaits.
Depending on time, you can either have students read this silently to themselves, have one of them read out loud, or read it out loud yourself.

4. What fraction of all of the total brown bears in the United States live in Alaska? How could you express this amount as a fraction, decimal, and percent? 1
Web Search
How many of the total number of brown bears in the United States live in Alaska? 2
If we knew the percentage of brown bears who live in Alaska out of the total number who live in the United States, how could we represent this as a fraction? 3
If we knew the percentage of brown bears who live in Alaska out of the total number who live in the United States, how could we represent this as a decimal? 4
Web Search/Thinking
If we were to convert a percentage into a fraction that represents this amount, how could we go about reducing this fraction to its simplest form? 5
If we knew the fraction of the total brown bears in the United States who live in Alaska, how could we convert this to a percentage?
There are a couple of ways to use this slide, depending on how much technology you have in your classroom. You can have students find answers on their own, divide them into teams to have them do all the questions competitively, or have each team find the answer to a different question and then come back together. If you’re doing teams, it is often wise to assign them roles (one person typing, one person who is in charge of sharing back the answer, etc.)

5. What fraction of all of the total brown bears in the United States live in Alaska? How could you express this amount as a fraction, decimal, and percent? 5
Minutes
You can adjust this based on how much time you want to give kids. If a group isn’t able to answer in 5 minutes, you can give them the opportunity to update at the end of class or extend time.

6. What fraction of all of the total brown bears in the United States live in Alaska? How could you express this amount as a fraction, decimal, and percent? 1
Web Search
How many of the total number of brown bears in the United States live in Alaska? 2
If we knew the percentage of brown bears who live in Alaska out of the total number who live in the United States, how could we represent this as a fraction? 3
If we knew the percentage of brown bears who live in Alaska out of the total number who live in the United States, how could we represent this as a decimal? 4
Web Search/Thinking
If we were to convert a percentage into a fraction that represents this amount, how could we go about reducing this fraction to its simplest form? 5
If we knew the fraction of the total brown bears in the United States who live in Alaska, how could we convert this to a percentage?

7. What fraction of all of the total brown bears in the United States live in Alaska? How could you express this amount as a fraction, decimal, and percent? 1
Web Search
How many of the total number of brown bears in the United States live in Alaska?
(Possible Search Queries: “brown bears in the United States”, “brown bear population Alaska”).
From
About 95% of the brown bear population in the United States is in Alaska, though in the lower 48 states, they are repopulating slowly but steadily along the Rockies and the western Great Plains.
Answers will vary depending on what resources students use to find this answer. The information they gain may already be in a fraction, decimal, or percent (like the one above).

8. What fraction of all of the total brown bears in the United States live in Alaska? How could you express this amount as a fraction, decimal, and percent? 2
Web Search
If we knew the percentage of brown bears who live in Alaska out of the total number who live in the United States, how could we represent this as a fraction?
(Possible Search Queries: “for kids, how to convert percentage to fraction”, “for kids, difference between percent and fraction”).
From
To convert a Percent to a Fraction follow these steps:
Step 1: Write down the percent divided by 100.
Step 2: If the percent is not a whole number, then multiply both top and bottom by 10 for every number after the decimal point. (For example, if there is one number after the decimal, then use 10, if there are two then use 100, etc.)
Step 3: Simplify (or reduce) the fraction
Students should understand from this description (or their previous understanding) that a percentage refers to an amount out of 100. Therefore, to convert it to a fraction, you can simply place it over the denominator 100. This means that if we knew the percentage of brown bears who live in Alaska, we could place this amount x/100, where this denominator represents the total number of brown bears in the United States.

9. What fraction of all of the total brown bears in the United States live in Alaska? How could you express this amount as a fraction, decimal, and percent? 3
Web Search
If we knew the percentage of brown bears who live in Alaska out of the total number who live in the United States, how could we represent this as a decimal?
(Possible Search Queries: “for kids, how to convert percentage to decimal”, “for kids, difference between percent and decimal”).
From
Percent means "per 100", so 50% means 50 per 100, or simply 50/100
If you divide 50 by 100 you get 0.5 (a decimal number).
So, to convert from percent to decimal: divide by 100, and remove the "%" sign.
Students should understand from this description (or their previous understanding) that a percentage refers to an amount out of 100. Therefore, to convert it to a decimal, you would need to divide by This means that if we knew the percentage of brown bears who live in Alaska, we could divide this amount by 100 (which means we would move the decimal point two places to the left).

10. What fraction of all of the total brown bears in the United States live in Alaska? How could you express this amount as a fraction, decimal, and percent? 4
Web Search/Thinking
If we were to convert a percentage into a fraction that represents this amount, how could we go about reducing this fraction to its simplest form?
(Possible Search Queries: “for kids, how to simplify fractions”, “for kids, fraction reduction”).
From
One way to reduce fractions is to find the greatest common factor of the numerator and the denominator. Here are the steps to follow:
-Write down the factors for the numerator and the denominator
-Determine the largest factor that is common between the two
-Divide the numerator and denominator by the greatest common factor
-Write down the reduced fraction
How do you know if a fraction is fully reduced? Writing a fraction in its simplest form means that the top and bottom numbers can no longer be divided by the same whole number exactly or evenly (other than the number 1). For example, the fraction 2/3 is fully reduced. There isn't any whole number, other than 1, that both 2 and 3 can be divided by without having a remainder. Other examples of fully reduced fractions include 7/8, 5/9, and 11/20.

11. What fraction of all of the total brown bears in the United States live in Alaska? How could you express this amount as a fraction, decimal, and percent? 5
Web Search
If we knew the fraction of the total brown bears in the United States who live in Alaska, how could we convert this to a percentage?
(Possible Search Queries: “for kids, converting a fraction to a percent”, “for kids, how to convert a fraction to a percent”).
From
A fraction to a percent:
Multiply the fraction by 100 and reduce it. Then, attach a percent sign.
1/4 x 100/1 = 100/4 = 25/1 = 25%

12. What fraction of all of the total brown bears in the United States live in Alaska? How could you express this amount as a fraction, decimal, and percent?
Students should pull together the information gathered in order to express the amount of brown bears living in Alaska out of the total number living in the United States as a fraction, percentage, and decimal. As a starting place, students should have found one of these amounts online; for example, that 95% of all brown bears living in the United States live in Alaska. Based on the instructions they have found from various resources, students should be able to convert this amount and understand that this percentage could also be expressed as the decimal 0.95, or as the fraction 95/100, which can then be reduced to 19/20.