Predictions Challenge

Planning for the 2020 winter holiday season has already begun. There is an urgent call for help.

  • Hallmark Cards Inc. is seeking help to determine how many US residents will buy holiday cards this year.
  • The Walt Disney Company is considering opening a new attraction in its Disneyland Parks based on its Frozen movies. It wants to know how many people in the US have seen its Frozen or Frozen 2 movie.
  • Santa Claus is trying to determine the number of gifts he need to hand out to US school kids on Christmas Eve 2020.
  • Santa Claus is also trying to figure out how many miles he need to travel on his sleigh on Christmas Eve 2020 to deliver all the gifts.

Choose one of the above four problems and make a prediction! (If you like, you can answer your own similar-type question instead.) Please make sure to explain what information you need and how you arrived at your prediction.

Prizes: The best submissions will earn a prize and will be posted on the Meeting 4 webpage. All submissions will earn credits for a raffle during the last meeting of this spring.

How to submit:

Math CEO middle school students should submit to your school’s Math CEO coordinating teacher via Google Classroom or other means.

UCI mentors can email submissions to mathceo@uci.edu.