MathsClass

‘The Biggest Loser’, the Australian version, is currently on Channel 10.  Conveniently, it appears on TV the same time we’re looking at Percentages with Year 8 providing a great connection between popular culture and maths.

If you’re not familiar with the show, the basic premise is that several overweight contestants are competing to lose the most weight.  Whilst weight loss is measured in kilograms, competitors are compared using percentage loss.  So, for the last three years I’ve created a worksheet based on The Biggest Loser as part of a lesson on applying percentages.

In 2007, I sent a copy of the worksheet to the show seeking permission to put it on this site.  Unfortunately, they didn’t get back to me.  So this year, I’m just publishing it. 

Page 1 of the file is the worksheet, page 2 is the solutions.  Contact me if you’d like the original Word (worksheet) and Excel (solutions) documents.  Data for the worksheet is sourced from Wikipedia.