Buying a Car
Developed by Shirl Farkas
Teacher Overview
This lesson will connect students with mathematics and real life car purchases. The lesson will be using computations for deciding how much to put down for the down payment and how to calculate an affordable monthly payment. Mathematics 11th and 12th Grade Mathematics State Standards: 2.211 – Develop and use computation concepts, operations and procedures with real numbers in problem-solving situations. 2.511 – Present mathematical procedures and results clearly, systematically, succinctly and correctly
Introduction
Wouldn’t you like to buy any car that you want? Everyone has their favorite vehicle that they would like to own. Unfortunately, sometimes the cost is much more than one can afford. Since you will be graduating soon and going off to college, this lesson will help students learn how much they need to make to be able to afford to pay for a car. There will be more costs besides just the cost of the vehicle that needs to be evaluated. Some questions to explore: Will you buy a new car or a used car? Will you buy or lease? What are the costs involved in purchasing a car? How are these costs determined? What resources can be used to compute a loan payment? Will there be maintenance costs? How many miles to the gallon for gas? How long do you want to finance this vehicle?
Investigation
The first decision is going to be should I buy a used car or a new car. If I buy a new car should I lease or purchase? Sometimes people think that buying a used car is cheaper; however, in the long run it can be more expensive. Chose four cars and look at: >cost >warrantee >gas mileage To find costs and gas mileage you can check out these websites: Http://edmunds.com Pricing reports; review; safety information; buying and leasing information. Http://www.kbb.com New-vehicle pricing reports; information on other blue book publications. Http://www.webfoot.com/cgi-bin/loan.pl Loan payment calculator. For warrantees you can check out the website of that particular vehicle.
Investigation
First, you have to decide which vehicle you want to buy based on the criteria you have already gathered. Then you can go to the loan calculator website to figure out what the monthly payment will be based on the cost of the vehicle. Then you have to figure out how much of a down payment. There will be a place on the loan calculator to put how much you are going to put for the down payment. Most people just put a cash down payment. My daughter recently bought a car and used money from my GM card as her down payment. How this works is if I use my credit card for a purchase a percentage of the cost is applied to my card for the purchase of a new vehicle. So, you might want to ask you parents if they have this option before just putting out cash for your down payment. The purpose of the down payment is to try to lower your monthly payments.
You also have to find out how much the insurance will be on your car. You could use these websites to get a quote: www.geico.com www.statefarm.com www.allstate.com www.njm.com After you decide which vehicle you want and you know how much it is going to cost per month, then you have to look at your finances to make sure that you make enough money every month to pay these bills. So you see, you can not just say I want to buy this or that car. You have to be able to pay for it also.
Gathering and Sorting
Since we are a class that is all learning the same subject, we will help each other. We can do this by bringing in our information to share with others in the class. As individuals you will be looking at the websites listed and also be looking at some that you have found on your own. When you come across another website that you think might help someone else, be courteous and tell them. By working on this as a class, we can help each other to make an informed decision.
The Portfolio
I will have a folder in the class to put information that you think would be useful for other students and future classes. The folder will be available to each and every student to help them in there search. I would like everyone to add at least one item that has helped you through this project.
Sharing
There will be many vehicles to choose from, so teaming up with another student will probably not help. So we will come together for the last 10-15 minutes of each class to: Share information with each other Help each other to decide if they are choosing the best vehicle Compare information
Evaluation
You grade will reflect how much time and accuracy was spent on this project. I will be using a rubric to grade. We will discuss the project in class and decide together how the rubric will be used. We can look at some websites to use as a guide. http://rubrics4teachers.com/ http://edweb.sdsu.edu/triton/july/rubrics/Rubric_Template.html http://www.lessonplansearch.com/Rubrics/index.html
Shirl Farkas Cyber Inquiry November 23, 2008