Have
you ever looked at the dates of the pennies in your
pocket?
A group of fourth grade
students at the Erving
Elementary School in
Erving, Massachusetts did and they discovered some very
interesting information. This web site will share our
students' penny information with you and give you the
opportunity to conduct your own penny circulation research
project. After you have conducted the experiment, you can
add your data to the site and share your discoveries with
others!
[Project is no longer accepting data.]
The
Activity:
The goal of this activity is
to discover which United States' one cent coins are still in
circulation.
Individuals or small groups of
students need to gather samples of 100 pennies that are
presently in circulation around the United States. Samples
should come from coins that are actually in circulation. Do
not use coins that have been in long term storage. Parents
and relatives are a good source for samples, piggy banks are
not.
Once 100 pennies have been
collected students should examine the dates on each coin and
tally the number of coins minted in each year. Once all 100
dates have been recorded the data can be added to our
results on this web site. We suggest that students also
graph their own results.
Our students are very
interested in seeing the results of other students around
the United States and curious to see if your results will be
similar to ours.
The
Questions:
Which coins are the most
common? Why?
Which coins are the most
scarce? Why?
Each year billions of pennies
are minted in the United States, but within a few years many
of these coins seem to disappear and are no longer in
circulation. What do you think happens to these
coins?
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