All Those Advertising Dollars!

Introduction: After getting information from advertising statistics available on the Internet, students will calculate percent increases (or percent decreases) for the top 25 companies in terms of advertising dollars spent during a year.

Prior Knowledge: Basic understanding of percent increase and percent decrease. Reading and comprehending charts where figures are in thousands ($1=$1,000, $10=$10,000, etc.). Use of four-function calculators. Rounding to the nearest tenth of a percent.

Grade Level: 5-7

Task: Students will complete a worksheet by finding percent increases (or percent decreases) by using a calculator. Also see Extensions.

Resources:

• Advertising Age: 100 top national Advertisers
• Percent Increases in Advertising worksheet
• Calculators for students

Process:

1. Access the above address on the Internet and use the information to fill out the two "Year" columns on the Percent Increases in Advertising worksheet.
2. Calculate the Increase and Percent Increase by doing the subtracting and dividing on the calculator. Have students round to the nearest tenth of a percent.
3. Enter the results on the worksheet.
4. Discuss what the results mean.

Also see Extensions.

Learning Advice:

1. A teacher may want to guide the students through the process by doing the first five companies or so before assigning the students to do the rest.
2. Make sure everybody understands the figures from the chart are in thousands.

Evaluation:

1. Students should know that they will be graded objectively on the computation part (basically the last two columns on the worksheet).
2. More subjective grading might be used if a teacher chose to make a writing extension to this activity.

Extensions:

• Bar graphs
• Creating a spreadsheet to do this assignment
• Analyzing and writing about the percent increases and percent decrease

Source:  http://score.kings.k12.ca.us/lessons/addollrs.htm

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