Project Question--2000 HS Contest

2000 WSMC HIGH SCHOOL MATHEMATICS CONTEST PROJECT QUESTION

PROJECT CHANGE

The incoming class at your high school decides to undertake "Project Change" in which the members of the class who choose to participate make a commitment to donate all of the change in their pockets at the end of each school day to a fund. These students can also ask any member of their immediate family to do the same. This money accumulates throughout the year and is invested for growth. You must choose three vehicles for investment (specific stocks, bonds, mutual funds, CDs, etc. ) and stick with these three for the entire four years. Assume that you invest the donated funds at the end of each month and that no money is withdrawn or transferred until the end of the four years. You must invest some of the money in a "high risk" vehicle, some in a "medium risk" vehicle and some in a "low risk" vehicle. You must stick with the same three specific investment vehicles throughout the four years. The amount you invest in each can change, but when you deposit your money at the end of each month you must put a minimum of 10% into each vehicle. At the end of four years, when the class graduates, the sum total is donated to one, two, or three charitable organization(s). The goal of the project is to give the maximum possible amount of money to the beneficiaries.

The questions include these:

How much money will you be able to donate at the end of the four years?
Select three specific investment vehicles and use information on past performance etc. to predict (model) their performance over the course of your investment.
Provide a graph showing how much money you expect to have at the end of each month.
Which organization(s) would you choose for your donation?
Select three beneficiaries and justify your selections.

The narrative description and questions above form the basis for your investigation. It is expected, however, that you will define and investigate additional problems as you work on the project. For example, in order to know how much money you will be able to collect, you might want to poll the students in your school to find out how many people would be willing to participate, how much money they are apt to have in their pockets at the end of a given day, whether this amount changes over the course of the year, whether this amount is different for seniors vs. freshmen vs. their parents if they choose to participate, etc. Judges will look for your ability to develop and use mathematics to address the problems that you will encounter as you seek to answer the basic questions listed above.

In order to help you consider and develop these problems, a Web site will be created to support the 2000 PROJECT QUESTION. At this site you will find a list of possible questions and investigations that might enable you to answer the questions more thoroughly.

Your investigation will result in three "products". The first will be a written report. The second will be a very brief presentation before an audience and a panel of judges. The third will be a display of some kind that you will use to summarize your findings for judges and others who will come to you and ask you questions about your work. In all three, you will need to explain your findings and conclusions, give reasons for the variables you decided to investigate and for the methods you chose to employ in the investigation, and so forth.