Entry 3: week 4

Overview:
This week we expanded on the rest of our standards, which included estimating powers of ten, converting metric/non-metric units, and we did something that wasn't on our list, which was learn about dimensional analysis. We learned these concepts with lectures and some more white boarding.

The week in detail:
This week my hour was lucky because even though we switched days only once (because of some field trips) we still had science twice (the people who have science on B days has it only once). Now that's not to say that we caught up to those people. That was because the momentum that we gained last class was pretty much non-existent this time. That meant the first day was almost wasted by constant talking, which seemed to upset the teacher (not that I can blame him). Therefore he moved seats in the second class. This seems like it  really helped so far. The group I'm paired with also seems to be really good with understanding the concepts, we just need to come out of our shells and begin to talk. That was pretty much the last social change of the week.

Day 1:

During this day we again didn't really get all that much done. All we did was go over the non-metric stuff, that included pounds, grams, inches, and so forth. I learned very quickly that the metric system is the way to go. That is because with the English system there are very weird conversion rates that aren't constant and off the wall. For instance, two cups equals one pint, four pints equals one quart, and four quarts equals one gallon. Even though it was a little confusing, that wasn't the only problem that I personally had. Another issue that was only had to do with me was the fact that after a while I was convinced that I had the answer that I closed out all other theories and logic. However, that wasn't the worst the part. The worst was when I discovered that I confused the conversion rates. That was a very humiliating time for me and I hope I never shut our all logic that again.

Another thing that we learned was this thing called dimensional analysis. It is an easier way to organize our thoughts when it came to converting multiple/ unlike units. This method involved listing all of the units and conversion factors, canceling out some units, and multiplying all of the numbers together. This seems complicated but in actuality is was quite simple. I mean my math teacher in 6th grade already taught us this.

Day 2:
On this day there was of course the move, which I had been  looking forward to for a long time. In addition to that there was the standards which we learned. It was how to estimate things using the powers of ten. This lesson was slightly difficult especially when the numbers were extremely close to the half-way point. Some of the actual concepts we learned were that with powers of ten there is a large difference between the degrees, even one. For instance, 10 to the 2nd power is a hundred but 10 to the 3rd power is a thousand. This realization led to our next finding, which was that powers of ten must be ranges, especially when estimating. After that, we learned that the half way point for a power of ten isn't 5 but it is 3.16.... and just keeps of going. That took most of us by surprise.

After we learned how to estimate we had real world questions. For instance, "how many basketballs would fit in the gym"? We of course used dimensional analysis, conversion rates, and all of the other skills we learned yesterday, but there was a debate about how to measure the ball itself. One person suggested that we measure the sphere like it was in a box because that is how the balls would fit into the gym, but one kid said that that method would skew the data by "skimping out" on potential room for more basketballs in an already smaller room. The other suggestion was to actually calculate the volume and estimate it accordingly. However, a lot of kids forgot that formula, which was a problem. In the end we settled by saying that the person could choose whichever method they wanted as long as there was a range given.

General likes/dislikes
I personally liked how we went through all of the conversion rates and how we handled the estimating portions. However, it seemed to me that we again went a little slow for my taste. Another thing that I liked was again the moving of seats, I believe that will help my class stay on topic a lot more. After that, another couple of things I would like to change would be keeping the far fetched problems but do a couple of real world situations. In addition to that I would like to in cooperate the use of half powers too. That would have made the calculations much easier. Finally, I liked how the teacher said just run with the problem and good luck. He left it up to the class to decide how to do the problems.