I do a Rat POW every year involving 2 rats shipwrecked on an island. They have a litter of 6 rats every 60 days. Those rats take 120 days to mature and then have litters of 6 rats every 60 days. There end up being many generations of rats and it is very difficult to keep track of them all. The goal is to figure out how many rats there will be at the end of a year (1016 if you are wondering). The point is organizing information and they make a poster showing their system. This time they wanted to use Excel to extend the pattern, so I made this Extra Credit challenge activity and I got the laptop cart so they could work on it in class. A student example is attached.

Here's what they came up with.

Tracy:

I can see that students would want to meet the challenge of solving this complex problem. The "grossness" factor of it being a bunch of rats is probably attractive to them too...

Hoping there's a limiting factor somewhere smiles,
LuAnn