The 2014 Academy Awards take place this Sunday. We thought you might enjoy sharing some fun math problems with your math intervention and math enrichment students, or maybe your entire class. Here are three.
Problem 1: Grades 2-4
Two of this year’s Best Song nominees are from animated movies. There is a popular music video for each of these songs on YouTube. Links are provided if you are able and wish to play the videos for the students.
Let it Go from Frozen has 563,935 likes and 27,207 dislikes.
Happy from Despicable 2 has 583, 689 likes and 14,427 dislikes.
If the most popular video on YouTube wins which song will get the Oscar?
Take a class vote to see which song they would like to see win.
Problem 2: Grades 5-8
No animation studio has been more successful than Pixar. Toy Story, Up and Wall-e were all Oscar winners. In fact, Pixar has won 7 out of the 9 times they were nominated. Unfortunately, they do not have a nominated film this year. Below is a list of the Oscar nominees for animated films and the studio record:
| Movie | Studio | wins/nominations |
| The Croods | Dreamworks | 2 out of 9 |
| The Wind Rises | Studio Ghibli | 1 out of 3 |
| Frozen | Walt Disney | 0 out of 7 |
| All others | 0 out of 0 |
Looking only at the studio’s past success rate of wins to nominations which movie is most likely to win?
Which movie would you like to see win?
Problem 3: Grade 6-8
Many are predicting that Gravity will win Best Picture. Gravity was the most popular movie bringing in $268 million in ticket sales, more than any other nominated film. However, popularity does not always indicate a winner. Two years ago the Best Picture, The Artist earned $44 million and only $12 million came in before the nomination. The rest was received after the nomination. What percentage of the total earnings for The Artist was received after the nomination?
Answer 72.7%