Book excerpt: Building on the solid foundation established in Connected Mathematics, over 15,000 students and 300 teachers contributed to the revision. Students will learn mathematics through appealing and engaging problems. The three-step Launch, Explore, Summarize approach helps students develop mathematical thinking and reasoning while practicing and maintaining skills. Users have long praised its appealing and engaging problems and the effective three-step Launch, Explore, and Summarize approach to learning. They've experienced first-hand how the investigations and excercises help students develop mathematical thinking and reasoning while practicing and maintaining skills. And, this research-based curriculum for Grades 6-8 has been funded by the National Science Foundation once again-resulting in Connected Mathematics 2. - Publisher.