In the fall of 2024, Citizen Math released updated versions of every lesson in our library, plus a few new ones! We know you may have already prepped an earlier version or planned a repeat of last year, so we're continuing to make these earlier versions available through Thursday December 5, 2024.
You can find the new lessons through the regular search, and we hope you love them as much as we do. You can read more about these updates in Our Community.
Click here for the updated version of this lesson!
How do municipal fines affect people with different incomes? Cities and towns around the country rely on parking and speeding tickets to generate much-needed revenue. Unfortunately these fines can trap the neediest residents in a cycle of debt, especially when they’re compounded by monthly late fees.
In this lesson, students write, solve, and graph systems of linear equations to determine how long it takes to pay off a ticket and debate the fairest ways for cities to raise revenues without harming their poorest residents.