Stimulating Understanding of Computational science through Collaboration, Exploration, Experiment, and Discovery for students with Hearing Impairments
a collaboration of the Shodor Education Foundation, Inc., Eastern North Carolina School for the Deaf, Barton College, the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, and Interpreters, Inc.

For Teachers!

Sieve of Eratosthenes

Audience:

 Upper Elementary and Middle School 

Overview:

Eratosthenes, an ancient Greek mathematician, devised a way to find all the prime numbers in a group of numbers.
Today, this is referred to as the Sieve of Eratosthenes. In this activity, your students will explore prime numbers and will
experiment with the sieve. 

This activity is a great way to explore prime numbers and the concept of divisibility while reviewing division facts. 

This activity should take between one and two class periods. An extension activity involving primes is available. It is a
cryptography, or "code breaking", program that uses prime numbers. 
 
á Goals and objectives: 

The Sieve of Eratosthenes (er` e-tos` the-nez`) model is designed to help introduce patterns, divisibility, rime
numbers, and modeling to your students. 

1.Students will practice their divisibility skills. 
2.Students will discover the meaning of prime and composite numbers through exploration. 
3.Students will be aware of patterns involved in numbers and divisibility. 
4.Students will interact with a model. 

Student Prerequisites: 

Before beginning this model, it is important that your students be able to divide numbers up to 20. They should also be
able to recognize basic patterns. 

Length: 

One class period

Materials Needed: 

Computers with access to this lesson via internet or CD

Vocabulary: 

sieve 
prime 
composite 
divisible 

Links to definitions of these words in English and ASL are available throughout the student pages. 

Developed by
The Shodor Education Foundation, Inc.

Copyright © 1999-2001 by The Shodor Education Foundation, Inc.

This project is supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation Opinions expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the National Science Foundation.