Education Technology


Personal License Plates

Activity Overview

Students explore concepts related to the counting principle and exponential notation. They write rules for calculations involving the counting principle and find the total number of possibilities from a set of rules.

Before the Activity

  • See the attached PDF file for detailed instructions for this activity
  • Print pages 98 - 101 from the attached PDF file for your class
  • During the Activity

    Distribute the pages to the class.

    Follow the activity procedures:

  • Formulate a set of rules for designing a personal license plate
  • Work out the number of possible ways for a character to be placed in each position
  • Use permutations and combinations to determine the total number of possible combinations
  • Generate a sample license plate for the developed set of rules
  • After the Activity

    Students complete the Student Activity pages and answer questions.

  • Review student results
  • As a class, discuss questions that appeared to be more challenging
  • Re-teach concepts as necessary