These exponential functions word problems get your students thinking critically about how exponential growth and decay can be related to real life.

Real life applications are an essential part of any curriculum, but can often intimidate students. This activity offers scaffolding to support students as they learn to solve word problems and navigate the problem solving process.

This real world algebra application is perfect for group work and collaboration. It can also be used as a stand-alone formative assessment for exponential functions!

This solving exponential functions activity includes:

✅ Exponential growth and decay models

✅ Writing exponential functions from real world scenarios

✅ Creating tables and graphs of exponential functions

✅ Evaluating and solving exponential functions

☆Answer key included☆

What is the real world scenario?

A local meteorologist is calculating the rates at which snow accumulates during a storm and melts once the temperature starts to increase.

How is this real life application different than regular word problems?

Most word problems have one question that needs to be answered and little follow up or detail. My real world math activities stretch one idea or scenario into a meaningful performance task that can be used as a full assessment of student learning.

This application is more than interpreting the question and quickly getting to the answer. Your students will be challenged to think critically about each scenario and defend their solutions.

The best part? All of the topics are relevant and modernized (because kids don’t care about calculating CD sales or cell phone minutes anymore).

How I have used this real world algebra application:

⭐Whole Group: This real world math activity is perfect for modeling how to apply the general form of exponential functions to real life problems.

⭐Small Group: Your students can work together to complete this activity and have discussions about different strategies for solving exponential functions.

⭐ Individual: You can use this activity as a formative assessment for your Algebra 1 students. It will usually take them about one class period to complete on their own.