In the fall of 2024, Citizen Math released updated versions of every lesson in our library, plus a few new ones! We know you may have already prepped an earlier version or planned a repeat of last year, so we're continuing to make these earlier versions available through Thursday December 5, 2024.
You can find the new lessons through the regular search, and we hope you love them as much as we do. You can read more about these updates in Our Community.
Click here for the updated version of this lesson!
Should the U.S. get rid of the penny? Each year the United States Mint spends more money producing pennies than the pennies are worth. Confronted with a similar issue, other countries have decided to get rid of their 1-cent coins altogether.
In this lesson, students operate with decimals to calculate the total costs to produce different U.S. coins. Students debate eliminating the penny and then consider a world with no physical money at all.