Outlaws of Crooked Gulch

Last night, a card game broke out during a fight at the Crooked Gulch saloon. (Or was it the other way around?) Seven of the card players were wanted outlaws, and they caught the eighth player cheating.

Players must identify the outlaws at the card game, determine which player held each hand of cards, and deduce which of the eight players was the cheater.

Outlaws of Crooked Gulch is a classroom game that blends mathematical practice with an escape room-style puzzle element.

To unravel the mystery, participants must gather and interpret clues. One step of this process requires completing a mathematical practice puzzle to construct an important piece of evidence. 

Three "puzzle" documents are available for download. The puzzle format is the same for all three of these documents; they differ only in terms of the mathematics content they contain. Before playing the game, choose one of the puzzle topics.

Topic choices for this Math Mystery include:

• Convert numbers to standard scientific notation
• Convert between three forms of a linear function
• Simplify rational algebraic expressions and identify restricted values of the variable