THERE’S A GOOD MATH PROBLEM IN THERE

Possible Directions

Gulliver’s Travels

Have the class pair up and measure the circumference of each other’s thumbs, wrists, and neck….you can use the waist if you want, but I’m not that bold.  Make sure all pairs use the same units and then collect the data to make scatter plots. See if the “twice around…” seems to be true. I find this a good way to introduce regression in statistics.

Harry Potter

Quidditch is a sport created in the world of Harry Potter. It is played on an elliptical pitch that is 500 feet long and 180 feet wide. Hopkinsville has been granted a team provided that it can find a place to build a pitch and stands. You need to do the following:

1.Open Google Earth and zoom in on the Hopkinsville and surrounding area.

2.Under the VIEW menu, make sure SCALE LEGEND is checked.

3.Scroll around the Hopkinsville area for a clear area to build a potential Quidditch pitch. You need to zoom in until the scale is as close as possible to 500 feet.

4.When you get it to this level, use the Snipping Tool to make a copy of this screen. Make sure to include the SCALE LEGEND for verification. Copy this to a Word file. When you get it into Word, enlarge the picture so it fills the page. (*You may need to change to Landscape mode.*)

5.Go to INSERT and choose the ELLIPSE (OVAL) shape. Using the SCALE LEGEND, draw your ellipse the length of the scale bar (close to 500 feet).

6.180 feet is roughly one-third of the 500 foot distance. Measure about one-third of the scale bar (using a ruler) and stretch your ellipse to that length. This is the size of your Quidditch pitch.

7.Rotate and move your shape to the appropriate place on your map.

8.In order for people to be able to watch the Quidditch Pitch, you need to create stands. The stands must be circular around the Pitch with a radius of 300 feet. INSERT another oval shape. Stretch its width so the oval becomes circular and 300 feet in radius.

9.Right-click on the circle and select FORMAT SHAPE. Change the TRANSPARENCY to 100%. Change the LINE STYLE to a width of 10.

10.Move the Circular stands around your Quidditch Pitch. You may have to move the Quidditch Pitch around too in order to get both shapes to fit in your area.

11.Print out a copy of this to turn in.

12.Copy your Ellipse to another Word file. Expand it so it keeps its shape, but fills the screen. Measure the ellipse to determine the “a” and “b” values. Calculate the “c” value. Place the focus points in the proper place on the ellipse.

The Tortoise and the Hare

Suppose the tortoise can run at 2 miles per hour. Suppose the hare leaves the starting line 12 hours after the tortoise running at 6 miles per hour.

1.Find the x-intercept and another data point for the tortoise. Write these points down. Use these points to plot the tortoise’s distance on a graph.

2.Find the x-intercept and another data point for the hare. Write these points down. Use these points to plot the hare’s distance on the SAME graph.

3.Extend both distance lines until they cross (you may have to redraw the graph if you realize that you run out of room). Estimate the point of intersection. Write it in coordinate point form.

Using the graph from the last situation, a fox leaves the starting line 3 hours after the hare running at 6 miles per hour.

1.Find the x-intercept and another data point for the fox. Write these points down. Use these points to plot the fox’s distance.

2.Extend the fox’s distance line until it crosses the distance line of the tortoise (you may have to redraw the graph if you realize that you run out of room). Estimate the point of intersection. Write it in coordinate point form.

3.When will the fox’s line cross the hare’s line? Why does this happen?

Clue

Read the article “Clue” posted on MathXL. The article mentions that all of the possible starting hands are not listed. List all of the possible starting hands. Then calculate how many possible options there are for the correct answer for each of the options.

The Price Is Right

Search online for a video clip of a rotational object in a TV show or movie. You will need to send in the link to the clip and the time in the video where the rotation is seen. You will need to estimate the size of the object being rotated and time its rotations the best that you can. Once you have an example with all of this information, calculate the linear speed of the ride in miles per hour. Show all work.

Man Vs. Food – Pizza Sizes

Choose three brands of frozen pizza or a particular restaurant that sells pizza in three different sizes. You can also look up a particular pizza restaurant online. You cannot use any of the examples from the notes. Determine the diameter of the pizza and the cost. Calculate the area of each pizza in square inches. Calculate the cost per square inch. Which pizza is the best deal? Show all steps.

Man Vs. Food – Menu Options

You are planning to open a restaurant in Hopkinsville and in order to drum up business, you want to entice Adam Richman and the “Man Vs. Food” show to come. They will agree to come if you can come up with a type of food for your menu with more options than the Blimpy Burger hamburger. Since they have already gone to Ann Arbor, they do not want another burger place. Create an item for your menu at your restaurant and different ways that you can order. Calculate that number of total ways you can order your menu item. Show your work.

Man Vs. Food – Eating Rates

Search YouTube for a video of a Man Vs. Food Eating Challenge. This should be a quantity challenge. This means he is trying to eat a lot of food in an interval of time. You may have to look at more than one before you find a good example.

Determine how much he has to eat to begin with. During the challenge, be on the lookout for how much he has eaten and how long it has taken him to get there. Record this data as best as you can. Provide a copy of what you have collected.

Determine the rates that he has been eating since the start of the challenge. For example, if he was doing a mini-donut challenge and he ate nine donuts in three minutes that is a rate of three donuts per minute. If later on you see that he has eaten twenty donuts in ten minutes, then the rate is now two donuts per minute. Show the work for all of the data that you collect.

Make an Excel graph for time vs. eating rate. Put the equation that best represents your data on the graph. Based on your graph and data, calculate how long it should take him to complete the challenge. If he was able to finish the challenge on the video, how close did your calculation come? Show all of your work.

Seinfeld

Suppose you and a friend are going to round up cans and/or bottles to take to Michigan to get the $0.10 deposit. Determine your plan for loading and transporting them from Hopkinsville to Michigan. Determine the values that you will need to calculate (volume of vehicle you will transport them, number of cans/bottles you can fit in the vehicle, travel costs, money you will make from the deposits, etc.) and then make your calculations. Is this plan reasonable? Show all work and explain what each calculation is being used for.

MenIn Black 3

Using the information in the Men In Black 3 video clip, find a building in New York City for Agent J to jump from. Determine the height of the building. How many seconds would he have to fall to reach the appropriate speed. How far would he have fallen in that time? Is the building that you have picked tall enough for him to successfully make the jump? Show all work.

Ghostbusters

If you haven’t seen the movie Ghostbusters (the original), at the end of the movie they are asked to battle a large version of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Your job for this assignment is simple……how long would it take for one person to eat the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man? 

You need to estimate the volume of the Marshmallow Man. You may assume he is “roughly” a cylinder. Then you need to estimate an eating speed/rate. With this information you can make an estimate of how long it would take to eat him. This is an example of what is called a “messy problem”. This means that this is a problem with many possible different approaches to calculating a solution and a problem which may have more than one possible “correct” answer…depending on how you approach it. I will be checking your calculations, but will be more interested in how you approached it and how you estimated your numbers and what you did with them. You should show all work and explain what each calculation is for.

Walking Tour

(*Note: These are directions for an online class.*)

You will work on this assignment with a group of three people. This is not optional. You are not allowed to work on your own for this. Here is what you need to do.

1.Create your group of three. Using the Facebook group might be the best way to create your group. First come, first served. Try to find people that will be available to work together around the same time. For example, if you do most of your math work in the evenings try to find two other people who also do.

Do a little “research” on the people you consider working with!! I’ve found in the past, people rush to make a group and then regret the people they have chosen to work with. There are plenty of students to make groups with. Make sure that you let people know what kind of a worker you are and what you expect before committing to a group!

2.When you have created your group, you need to decide on a USA location for a vacation. This should be a location with five tourist attractions in reasonable walking distance from each other. You also need to find a hotel in the area you would stay at. When you have agreed on your location, one person needs to send me an email and copy the other two group members on it. In this email, you need to mention who the people in your group are, what location you are going to use, and what hotel you will stay at, and what attractions you will visit. First come, first served on location.

3.Assume you have a walking speed of 4 miles per hour. You will need to use Google Earth to find an overhead map of your location with your tourist attractions. You will start from the hotel and then determine the order you are going to visit the five attractions. Use the ruler feature to determine the distance you will walk between your attractions. With this information, you will need to calculate how long it will take you to walk from the hotel to the first one then to the second one and so on. After the last attraction, you will walk back to the hotel. Determine how long you plan to spend at each attraction and the total time for your day.

4.Send me a screen shot of your map from Google Earth and your calculations / answers. EACH member of the group needs to make a video explaining a calculation of part of the trip. Each person must explain a different part of the trip. Unless all members of the group submit videos on time, the group will receive a zero for this assignment!

Have fun with this!! 