Calculating the Distance Lesson by Rick Hansen Foundation

Calculating the Distance Lesson

*This lesson was developed by the Rick Hansen Foundation and links to an external source.

Summary:
In this lesson, students complete grade-appropriate math problems using facts and figures from Rick Hansen’s Man In Motion World Tour. Students will examine mathematical problems evolving out of the day-to-day challenges of Rick Hansen’s Man In Motion World Tour. Students will apply multiplication and division skills to real-life math problems. Students will apply conversion skills to real-life math problems.

Our suggestions when teaching this lesson:

• Additional concepts to explore with this lesson

  • Grades 6 to 7 can target converting km to miles

  • Do the countries he visited in 1987 still have the same names?

  • What has changed in the world since his tour and how would those changes impact his tour if it were completed today?

  • If his wheelchair broke, how would he fix it in a particular country?

Subject and topic: 

Math, Geography, Diversity and Equity, Social and Emotional Learning

Grade level:

5th - 7th grades

Duration: 

60 minutes

Links to download lessons:

See the lesson plan on CommonLit: Calculating the Distance

Rick Hansen Foundation Lessons are downloadable PDFs. Registration may be required, but is free. They are a Canadian organization, so you may find additional ways to use these lessons with opportunities to discuss geography, use of the metric system, and they offer their lessons in French as well.

*At this time, they note that they are making updates to their resource library. Some links/downloads may break and need to be updated once they have been updated. If you encounter any broken links, please let us know so we can update this listing.