Finding Mean in a Concrete Manner Using Graduated Cylinders

Finding MEAN in a concrete manner! This was a real "aha" moment for my students in actually understanding the concept of mean. Students are asked to fill graduated cylinders (or beakers) with water to the following amounts (in mL): 70, 30, 90, 20, 50. Then they fill in the corresponding amount with colored pencil on the worksheet. Students are asked to distribute the water in the cylinders so that each of the containers has the same amount of liquid and record the amount in each cylinder. Lastly, they find the mean of the original numbers. See the math/science connection??!