Teams of students play the role of applicants for a job as assistant to the president of a large company. As part of the interviewing process, each team must plan a multi-city trip for the firm's president and present a proposed travel schedule and budget. To put together their best travel plan, students study a map, consider different routes, visit a web site to get airline schedules and costs, and analyze their data. Each team presents its travel schedule and budget to the class. Then teams analyze the different plans and decide who should be hired.

• Activities 3-4 periods

• Extensions 1-2 periods for each.

• Recording Sheet A and Recording Sheet B.

• http://www.travelocity.com

• http://PutnamValleySchools.org/Standards.html

A. Introducing the Activity

1. How to Plan a Class Field Trip
2. Compare a Field Trip to a Plane Trip
3. Get Ready for the Activity

B. Doing the Activity

1. Planning a Multi-City Trip
2. Presenting Plans, Analyzing, and Deciding

C. Reflecting on the Activity
D. Extensions

To Top of Section

3. Get Ready for the Activity

Tell students that they are applying for a job as the assistant to the president of a company in Dallas, Texas. The president wants to see how good they are with planning travel schedules and keeping costs down. To help her pick the most qualified candidate, the president asks you to plan a trip for her.

• Locate the cities on a map.

• Create and record on the Travel Chart (Recording Sheet A) two or more possible flight plans. Gather the necessary information from http://www. travelocity.com.

For example:

• Decide on the best plan by considering factors such as cost, time, convenience, and other factors.

• Present your plan to the class, and then help choose the best one.

B. DOING THE ACTIVITY

1. Planning a Multi-city Trip

Organize the class into groups of 3 or 4. Let students review flight information on the following web site:

http://www.travelocity.com

Students can sign on as guests to this web site, click on Find/Book a Flight, then follow on-screen directions to find the time and price of available flights between any two cities.

As students work, circulate among the groups to give help as needed and to assess student progress by observing and asking questions.

Guiding Questions about the Trip Requirements:

• How many cities will the president visit? [4]

• How much time does he need to spend in each city? [4 hrs]

• On what days does the president plan to leave Dallas and return to Dallas?

[leave on Monday, return on Friday]

• How long does it take to drive to or from the airport?

[about an hour for the field offices , and 1/2 hour for the Dallas office]

• Can the meetings take place any time?

[No, they must occur between 8 AM and 6 PM.]

• Should the cost of travel to and from the airport be included/considered?

[Students can suggest the answer here.]

Guiding Questions to get Started

• What kinds of information do you think would help you most in deciding which city to visit first, second, etc.?

[location of cities, times, prices, and duration of flights]

• What flight information do you need?

[departure and arrival times for flights, duration of flights, cost of flights]

• Can you use round-trip fare prices? Why or why not?

[No, because the president will not depart from and return to the same city.]

• Besides flight information, what else do you need to keep in mind?

[time of office meetings, travel time to and from offices, etc.]

• Where on the Travel Chart could you record this information?

[in Notes column]

Guiding Questions about Air Travel and Cost

• Consider this statement: Airfares are less between cities that are closer to each other. Is this a true statement?

[Students may think so, but this does not always happen. For example, look at these recent fares from Dallas:

-- to Kansas City, MO. (495 miles) $139

-- to St. Louis, MO - ( 631 miles) $475

-- to Nashville, TN - (664 miles) $501

-- to Chicago, IL - (928 miles) $109 ]

• Can you find an example from your data that supports the statement above and an example that does not support it?

[For example, from data above, Kansas City is closer to Dallas than St. Louis, and the airfare to Kansas City is less. This supports the statement. However, Kansas City is also closer to Dallas than Chicago, and yet the airfare to Chicago is less. This does not support the statement.]

• Do you plan to use the same airline for all flights? Why or why not?

[Sample responses: Use different airlines if the fare is lower, the flight is shorter, or the departure time is more convenient. Use the same airline for convenience or frequent-flier miles.]

• When several airlines have flights between 2 cities, is the fare usually cheaper? Why do you think that is or isn't so?

[Yes, this is usually true because if there are more airlines to choose from, the airlines may compete for your business by lowering their fares.]

• Did the time of day you plan to travel to or from a city influence the airfare cost? Why do you think that is or isn't so?

[Sample response: Yes, because the discount seats may sell out more quickly on flights that leave at popular times such as early morning or late afternoon.]

• How are you keeping track of the total airfare to be sure you don't go over budget?

[by adding, by estimating, using mental math, paper/pencil, or a calculator]

• How do you decide which computation method to use?

[Sample responses: If we want to see if the total is getting close to $1620, we estimate. If the numbers are easy to work with, we use mental math. If we need an exact total and the numbers are not easy, we use paper and pencil or a calculator.]

Guiding Questions about Schedules

• Do you plan to get the president to each city the night before his meeting or the day of his meeting? Why?

[Sample response: The night before so she is better rested for the meeting and doesn't have to rush to get to it.]

• What times do you have in mind for the meetings?

[Answers will vary but should be between 8 AM and 6 PM.]

• Must all the meetings take place at the same time of day?

[no]

• Can the president arrive at 1:45 PM for a meeting that same day? Why or why not?

[No, because she won't get to the office until about 2:45, which means the meeting would end after 6 PM.]

To Top of Section

2. Presenting Plans, Analyzing and Deciding

Ask the teams to each prepare a short presentation of their travel plan, including schedule and cost. Tell them to pretend they are presenting their plan to the company president. They should point out features in their plan that they think make it the best plan. During a team's presentation, students on other teams use the Team Analysis Sheet (Recording Sheet B) to note what they like and dislike about the travel plan, and their reasons.

• From the data you gathered, what have you learned about the distance between cities and airfare?

• What other factors influence airfares between two cities?

• Why was a time schedule important?

• Was your travel schedule an easy one for the President to follow? Why or why not?

• As you worked on your travel schedule and budget, when was it best to estimate, when was it best to use mental math or use paper and pencil, and when was it best to use the calculator? How did you decide which strategy to use?

• What have you learned from other teams' travel plans?

• If you could revise your travel plan, what would you change? Why?

• Teams extend their travel plan to include hotel reservations with an additional $750 budgeted.

• Have students figure out how many possible routes there are for a trip from Dallas to each of the 4 cities and back to Dallas.

• Students play a game in which they pick two cities, estimate the distance between them, and then look up the distance to see who is closer. They can also play this game with 3 or more cities, the object being to estimate the shortest distance from one city to the other two and back home.

• Students pick two cities in different time zones and estimate the average speed of the plane based on distance, and arrival and departure times. In their calculations, students should allow 30 minutes for the plane to taxi between the gate and the runway on take off and on landing.

• If your students communicate by e-mail with students in another class, then students could challenge each other to complete this lesson and share data and experiences with one another.

A. TEACHER REFLECTIONS

Here are a few quesitons to ask yourself or discuss with a colleague during and after the lesson.

• Did students achieve the objectives for this lesson?

• What additional experiences do students need to be successful with this lesson?

• What additional experiences do students need before moving to the next lesson?

• Are students able to give and explain their reasoning? Are their reasons logical?

• What are the indicators that students are able to work together?

• How do students decide upon shared responsibilities?

• Are students able to quantify, organize and/or record information?

• Were directions clear and usable by students? If not what adjustments would be appropriate for me to make?

• What new vocabulary did students use that might need to be reinforced in the next lesson?

• What additional extensions would be appropriate?

B. RELATED RESOURCES

To find out about your local or state standards requirements, in order to verify or modify the teaching of this lesson so that it is in alignment with those standards, visit this website: http://PutnamValleySchools.org/Standards.html

• Travel Chart - Recording Sheet A

• Team Analysis Chart - Recording Sheet B

Back to lesson | Back to Overview | Download PDF