MARKET SQUARE| TAX, TIP, DISCOUNT, MARKUP PROJECT
Market Square: The Ultimate Percent Challenge
Make learning percentages meaningful with a business-themed math project! Students apply their understanding of discounts, tips, taxes, and markups as they move from smart shoppers to young entrepreneurs.
The challenge takes students through three stages:
- Market Training Challenge: Students visit different stores through eight real-world task cards. They calculate savings, final prices, tips, taxes, and markups, compare deals, and show their work on a recording sheet.
- Create Your Own Store: Students become business owners by planning a store, designing products, setting prices, and creating promotions to attract customers.
- Market Square Shark Tank Challenge: Students present their businesses, explain their pricing and promotion decisions, answer panel questions, and solve a surprise customer challenge. The teacher or selected students can serve as the Shark Panel.
Included materials support students and teachers with:
- Eight real-world percent task cards
- A student recording sheet
- A worked answer key with boxed final answers
- Shark Tank presentation guidance and a student response template
- Business, math, and decision-making questions
- Sample customer challenges involving discounts, taxes, and price comparisons
This resource helps educators connect percent calculations to everyday decisions while encouraging problem-solving, teamwork, and clear mathematical explanations. Students practise choosing the correct calculation, showing their reasoning, and explaining why their answers make sense.
Use the task cards for math stations or small-group practice, or complete the full challenge as a collaborative project, percent review, or performance assessment.