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Downside Up

Is there an upside to having a bad day?

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Downside Up

Is there an upside to having a bad day?

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Downside Up - Student Handout.pdf
Downside Up - Teacher Guide.pdf
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Is there an upside to having a bad day? From TV ads to social media, we’re constantly told that if we’re not always happy, we must be doing something wrong.

In this lesson, students use positive integers, negative integers, and absolute value to describe the emotions of a day and discuss the important role that different emotions play in our lives.

REAL WORLD TAKEAWAYS

  • Everyone experiences a range of emotions with different intensities at different times. This is part of the human condition.

MATH OBJECTIVES

  • Interpret and analyze graphs
  • Find differences between integers (both positive and negative)
  • Describe the magnitude of positive and negative integers using absolute value
Great anytime, including at the beginning of a unit before students have any formal introduction to the topic.
Grade 6
Positive & Negative Integers
Grade 6
Positive & Negative Integers
Content Standards 6.NS.5 Understand that positive and negative numbers are used together to describe quantities having opposite directions or values (e.g., temperature above/below zero, elevation above/below sea level, credits/debits, positive/negative electric charge); use positive and negative numbers to represent quantities in real-world contexts, explaining the meaning of 0 in each situation. 6.NS.6 Understand a rational number as a point on the number line. Extend number line diagrams and coordinate axes familiar from previous grades to represent points on the line and in the plane with negative number coordinates. (a) Recognize opposite signs of numbers as indicating locations on opposite sides of 0 on the number line; recognize that the opposite of the opposite of a number is the number itself, e.g., ‐(‐3) = 3, and that 0 is its own opposite. (b) Understand signs of numbers in ordered pairs as indicating locations in quadrants of the coordinate plane; recognize that when two ordered pairs differ only by signs, the locations of the points are related by reflections across one or both axes. (c) Find and position integers and other rational numbers on a horizontal or vertical number line diagram; find and position pairs of integers and other rational numbers on a coordinate plane. 6.NS.7 Understand ordering and absolute value of rational numbers. (a) Interpret statements of inequality as statements about the relative position of two numbers on a number line diagram. For example, interpret ‐3 > ‐7 as a statement that ‐3 is located to the right of ‐7 on a number line oriented from left to right. (b) Write, interpret, and explain statements of order for rational numbers in real-world contexts. For example, write ‐3 °C > ‐7 °C to express the fact that ‐3 °C is warmer than ‐7 °C. (c) Understand the absolute value of a rational number as its distance from 0 on the number line; interpret absolute value as magnitude for a positive or negative quantity in a real-world situation. For example, for an account balance of ‐30 dollars, write |‐30| = 30 to describe the size of the debt in dollars. (d) Distinguish comparisons of absolute value from statements about order. For example, recognize that an account balance less than ‐30 dollars represents a debt greater than 30 dollars. 6.NS.8 Solve real-world and mathematical problems by graphing points in all four quadrants of the coordinate plane. Include use of coordinates and absolute value to find distances between points with the same first coordinate or the same second coordinate.
Mathematical Practices MP.3 Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. MP.4 Model with mathematics.

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