ABSTRACT
Bicycle gears offer a great real-world connection to ratios and rates! Teachers’ students may benefit from looking at a bike as they introduce this activity Show them that the gears consist of two sets of toothed disks called sprockets. One set is attached to the pedal and the other to the rear wheel. The CCSS use the word ratio for comparisons expressed as two numbers and the word rate for single-number comparisons. The gear ratio equals the number of times the wheel turns when the pedal turns once. Students may need some help at first making a connection between the size of the wheel and the forward motion of the bike.
