5.13.2010

What Do You Think?

What DO YOU THINK?!?! Help Others, Help Yourself!
Rules of the game: Provided your peers with feedback.
-You must review TWO websites in every Grade Level =SIX websites Per Person!

-You must answer the following questions FOR EVERY WEBSITE & STATE YOUR EVIDENCE!

-What does state your evidence mean?!?!  State your evidence means you must give a detailed explanation for why you think what you think.  You may NOT only say, “They did a good job!” or “It was horrible!”  You must back up your thoughts with evidence about WHY they did a good job.

Questions:

Who are you talking about?
•    State the initials and grade level of the authors.

What do you think of the content?
•    How was the quality of the math?
•    Was it easy to understand?

Did it grab your attention?
•    What did you think of the graphics?
•    Did it make you want to do math (or at least try it out)?

What suggestions do you have?
•    What suggestions would you give to the authors?
•    What was the best part of the site?
•    What part of the site needed improvement?

What about the rubric?
•    Did they follow the rubric?
•    What section did they do the best on?
•    What section did they need to improve on?

What grade would you give you site?
•    A – B – C – D – F (and why)?

4.01.2010

Three Monkeys


Three monkeys walk into a motel on the Planet of the Apes and ask for a room. The desk clerk says a room costs 30 bananas, so each monkey pays 10 bananas towards the cost.

Later, the clerk realizes he made a mistake, that the room should have been 25 bananas. He calls the bellboy over and asks him to refund the other 5 bananas to the 3 monkeys. The bellboy, not wanting to make a mess dividing the 5 bananas three ways, decides to lie about the price, refunding each monkey 1 banana, keeping the other 2 bananas for himself. Ultimately each monkey paid 9 bananas towards the room and the bellboy got 2 bananas, for a total of 29 bananas. But the original charge was 30 bananas.


Where did the extra 1 banana go?

2.26.2010

Fire Drill At 1:00pm today

Fire Drill At 1:00pm today!  Now proceed to today's blog and be ready at a little before one.  ;-)
Ms. L.

2.25.2010

Burger Bucks

Parents are often more than happy to point out how much cheaper things were when they were a kid. This is referred to as the “when I was a kid,” syndrome. Even my mom likes to tell me about the diner she went to in the 1950’s. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard the story about how you could get a "Burger, fries, and a drink, and change back from a dollar!" She remembers the burgers alone only cost 29 cents. Now, keep in mind that although there were daily specials, there was no such thing as a “meal deal.”

Nowadays a burger, small fries, and a small drink from a fast-food chain (all purchased separately like my mom had to do,) will cost you $5.57. A burger alone is $2.89 cents and the fries will run you about $1.29. I have to agree that sure seems more expensive!

So using this information, how much was the whole meal in the 1950’s?

How much was just a drink in the 1950’s?

How much were just the fries in the 1950’s?

Make sure to explain how you found your costs in the 1950’s. Your explanation should be so clear anyone could solve this kind of problem.

What math concept have you learned in class that helps you solve this problem?

Make sure to organize your data in a manner that is easy for people to compare the costs.


EXTRA CREDIT:
If the increased cost of these items were exactly the same as the 60 year period from above, how much will those same food items cost you in 2070?

2.18.2010

The Same Old...


In the figure above, the two triangles are similar. You will need to find the value of x.  Make sure to provide proof that your solution is correct.  This should be written out and should be supported with an illustration(s) so we fully understand how you found your solution.  Once you have found your solution you will want to open paint and create the visual to support your explaination. 

Copy and paste your visual into the word document you used to write up your solution.  When you have completed the task and you are ready to submit your work you will need to open your own email and send your work to mathclasshonors@yahoo.com.  You can not just click on this link.  You will need to copy and paste this address in the "To" in your email.  You will attach your work in your email.  DO NOT cut and paste your work in the body of the email.

2.11.2010

Horton's Clover Hunt

Horton's Clover Hunt

Who doesn't love the story Horton Hears a Who! by Dr. Seuss. For those of you who aren't familiar with this particular tale, Horton the elephant takes on the task of protecting tiny creatures living on a dust speck that he has placed on a clover.

At one point in the story, a bird steals the clover from Horton and drops it over a very large clover field at 6:56 a.m. Ever the faithful protector and true to his promise to save them, "Because, after all, a person's a person, no matter how small," Horton begins the enormous task of searching for the lost clover.


But clover, by clover, by clover he found
That the one that he sought for was just not around.
And by noon poor old Horton, more dead than alive,
Had picked, searched, and piled up, nine thousand and five.

1. At this rate, estimate how many clovers Horton picked each minute.
2. Approximately how many seconds did Horton spend on each clover?

 For each of the above answers, round to the nearest whole unit.

 The story continues

Then, on through the afternoon, hour after hour...
Till he found them at last! On the three millionth flower!

You need only choose one of these questions to answer:

A. If Horton continued at the rate you calculated above without pausing, how long would it take him to reach the three millionth flower? Be sure to answer this question in a way that makes sense (in other words, don't give an answer like 72 hours when 3 days would give us a better sense of how long this is).

or

B. In the story it seems that Horton finds the clover later the same day. If he continued picking from noon until he found the clover at six o'clock that same evening, approximately how fast would he have to work?

This weeks POW is fun,
Comprehensive answers will be done,
Incomplete answers are not fine,
Nor is just having the "answer" in mind,
Working in partners will do
But don't post until your answer is true.  :-)


Dr. Suesseckman

Solution: Most of you were right on the money for the rate per minute and also seconds per clover, however you were kind of all over the place for the last two questions.   ;-)  Please think these through carefully before posting you answers.  Many of you posted the same answer, exactly!  You are given the privilege of working together however when it comes to posting it needs to be your own work, thoughts and words.  Duplicate posts will no longer accepted.  I will accept the first post and credit it's author and then reject any posts using the same verbiage and will not credit the author with a score.  Further, the posts writing has moved away from the posting requirements.  Please review the requirements as future posts that do not meet the requirements will not be posted nor will credit be assigned for the problem. 


1. At this rate, estimate how many clovers Horton picked each minute.
a. 30 clovers per minute

2. Approximately how many seconds did Horton spend on each clover?
a. 2 seconds per clover. 

You need only choose one of these questions to answer:
a. If Horton continued at the rate you calculated above without pausing, how long would it take him to reach the three millionth flower? Be sure to answer this question in a way that makes sense (in other words, don't give an answer like 72 hours when 3 days would give us a better sense of how long this is). 
a. It would take Horton about 10 weeks of non-stop picking to get 3 million clovers. 

or

b. In the story it seems that Horton finds the clover later the same day. If he continued picking from noon until he found the clover at six o'clock that same evening, approximately how fast would he have to work? 
a. 8,308 clovers per minute to finish by 6:00 pm.










2.04.2010

Best Brownies



The bakery chef at Central Supermarket is collecting the ingredients to bake some brownies. His cookbook contains this ingredient list:

INGREDIENTS FOR BROWNIES
1/2 cup butter
1.5 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup chopped nuts
Use a 6-inch by 9-inch baking pan.

    However, the chef needs to use a commercial-size baking pan, 18 inches by 2 feet.
Figure out how much of each ingredient would be needed to bake brownies in this pan.  Explain how you found your answer and how you know it is correct.

(The brownies should still have the same thickness as in the original recipe.)

1.   The answers for this post were kind of all over the place.  A couple of things you should have been thinking about as you solved this problem:

2.   Did you include the units?  Were you suppose to use cups, teaspoons? This would have a huge effect on the new batch of brownies. 

3.   Did you fractions make sense?  Could a larger recipe call for less of an ingredient?

4.   How many dimensions are you enlarging?  This problem call for you to use the area of the pan, (we didn't even have to think about the volume - whew!) which is two dimensions.  Because you were using two dimensions we need to take that scale factor for both sides and multiply them together or as we learned in the scaling project to square our scale factor.

Make sure to slow down and think about the POW if it seems so obvious you may want to re-read the problem to be sure you have all the information you need to solve the problem.
Ms. L.

The correct answer:

The new recipe

4 cups butter
12 ounces unsweetened chocolate
8 cups sugar
16 eggs
8 teaspoons vanilla
6 cups all-purpose flour
8/3 cups chopped nuts