Comparing Chainsaws Mathematically

 Last fall, after everything flooded, there were tons of logs left all over the beach, the river banks, and even in the ponds.  I'd see men head over on their ATV's pulling trailers, head over, pull out their chainsaws, to cut the logs into usable pieces for heating during the winter.

Chainsaws are important up here in Alaska because so many houses use wood burning heat to supplement the oil heat and they use wood when they take a steam.

So I developed a math exercise so students can learn to compare power to weight ratios, find toque, and discover how fast the chain itself is going.  I had fun researching it as I don't usually use a chainsaw.

Formulas you will need.

1. Power to Weight ratio where you divide the Horse power number by the dry weight.  The Power  to weight ratio tells you how much power it has for each horsepower.

2. Torque is (Horse power x 5252)/RPM.  Torque is a way of talking about the work a machine does. 

3. Speed of motor turning is to take the RPM/60 gives you revolutions per second. 

Take the answer 

4. Speed of the chain.

Step 1.  Top RPM x number of teeth.

Step 2.  Take answer from step 1 x (.375 + 3.75)

Step 3.  Take the answer from step 2 x 60.

Step 4.  Take the answer from step 3 / 12

Step 5.  Take the answer from step 4 / 12 

Step 6.  The answer from step 5 is the speed of the chain in mph.

Place the answers in the following table

Chain saw	STIHL MS 271	Husquava 455 Rancheer.
Power to weight ratio
Torque
Speed of motor
Speed of chain

Compare and contrast the power to weight ratio, the torque, speed of motor, and speed of chain.

Please answer the following two questions.  Write in complete sentences.

1. Based on the answers, which chainsaw would you recommend?

2.  Based on personal experience, which one would you recommend?

I've shared this with you so if you want to try something like this during this time of distance learning, go a head.  I had two teachers tell me they were trying the outboard motor exercise I shared this past Friday.  They found it fun and enjoyed it.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.

Outboard Motors

 Outboard motors are extremely important out here.  Anyone who has a boat, uses an outboard motor.  I chose a 250 HP motor with the idea that they owned a commercial fishing boat and needed to replace it so they need to learn to do certain comparsons.

When I began developing this activity, I knew absolutely nothing about boat motors.  It was after I finished writing this that I found out the size motor I chose was a bit excessive for taking your boat up river.  I discovered the 250 horsepower is actually more of a motor for a commercial boat.

When I learned that, I went ahead and used the idea of a commercial fishing boat because so many people in this village go commercial fishing in the summer and earn enough money to live the rest of the year.

I chose the four most popular brands used out here.  I had to ask another teacher but he was more than willing to help me out.

So now you see the activity I created.

Outboard Boat Motors

1.Calculate the power to weight ratio by dividing power in HP by the dry weight.              So HP/weight in pounds.

2. Calculate the bore - stroke ratio by dividing the bore measurement by the stroke measurement.  So bore/stroke

3.  Find average gas consumption by following the appropriate formula

     For a 2 cycle engine - HP/12

     For a 4 cycle engine - HP/15

4. Find the percent  between the answer in Step 3 and the GPH listed.

For instance if you have a  250/10 = 25 gph.

The published GPH is 19.2. 

To find the percent of the calculated is published GPH/calculated GPH.

So I’d take 19.2/25 = .768

Take .768 x 100 - 76.8. so the percent of the calculated is 78.6 %

5.  Find the torque by multiplying HP x 5252 and dividing that answer by RPM.

 So (HP x 5252)/RPM

Write the answers in the following table.

Motor	Mercury Sea Pro 250	Evinrude 250	Yamaha F-250	Honda BF 250
Power to weight Ratio
Bore stroke ratio
Average gas consumption
Percent of GPH listed/calculated GPH
Torque

1. Based on the results in the table, make a recommendation on which outboard engine you would suggest I buy for my fishing boat.  Use the data to support your answer.

2.  Which motor would you recommend based on your personal experience.  Give me concrete reasons for your recommendation.

If you would like to change the engines out for something smaller, feel free to do so.  You can also choose the brands you are more familiar with.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Next time, I'll present one of chair saws.  Have a great day.

Warm-up

If it takes 3.5 pounds of grapes to make one quart of jelly, how many quarts of jelly can you make from a lug of grapes. A lug weighs 26 pounds.

Warm-up

If 26 pounds of grapes give you 7.5 quarts of grape juice, how many pounds of graphs do you need to make 15 gallons of juice?

Buying a Snowmachine

 My district decided to send packets home for students to work on because only about 50 percent had enough internet to attend online meetings.  We were also told not to teach new material because too many parents would not be able to help their students.

I decided to create some material that would be more relevant to them than most of the things I could find online.

I love in Alaska which means snow machines are much more relevant to my students because most every family has at least one but usually more.  There are a couple of students who would rather spend all their time watching videos starting snow machines so I created an activity for them to do where they calculated the power to weight ratio, bore to stroke ratio and calculate torque for three popular brands out here.  I thought I'd share this with you.

Snow Machine Comparison.

 

Formulas you will need.

Power to Weight ratio where you divide the Horse power number by the dry weight.  The Power  to weight ratio tells you how much power it has for each horsepower.

Bore - stroke ratio. Is where the size of the bore is divided by the size of the stroke.  You want a ratio that is as close to one as you can get so you have the best torque and power.

Torque is (Horse power x 5252)/RPM.  Torque is a way of talking about the work a machine does.  

Fill out the following table using the formulas at the side.

Snow machine	Ski-doo	Polaris	Arctic Cat
Power/Weight
Bore/Stroke
Torque = (HP x 5252)/RPM

1. Once you calculate this information, write a paragraph on which snow machine is the best and why based on the information in the table.

2.  Which one of these would you buy.  Explain your reasoning behind your choice.

I designed this activity so students would learn about some important math focused on snow machines and to use the answers to help them decide on a machine.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.

Have a great day.

Structuring a Virtual Classroom.

 By now, most of us have realized that teaching via distance is so different than doing it in person.  The warm up we've done where we throw the activity up on the board or screen cannot be done in quite the same way.  In addition, the structure of the class has to be adjusted.

Furthermore, most of us will not see our students until the beginning of the next school year.  There are things we can do to make it easier for our students to succeed in today's new learning environment.

Here are some hints to help the students succeed:

1. It is suggested teachers use asynchronous learning rather than synchronous for several reasons.  Asynchronous allows the teacher to create lessons that are recorded so students can access them as needed.  They can rewatch the lessons as needed, watch them at their own pace, and they don't miss anything if there is a technical glitch.

When teaching is done in real time, it is possible to miss some of the material if the student or teacher experiences any technical difficulty.  If a student needs to review the lesson, they cannot unless the teacher records the lesson as it is being taught so it can be posted later.

2.  Plan on covering less material in each lesson because their home life might be quite distracting and it might be hard for them to focus.  Students may not have the support at home to help them keep up with the normal amount of work so plan on accomplishing less during each day's lesson.

3. Let them know what will be covered in the lesson.  Rather than spending all your time in class going through the usual lecture, assign a video to watch before the actual class.  When class begins, have them answer one or two questions about the video.  Spend the actual class time with activities to make it more interactive and then have them fill out an exit ticket.

4. When you teach a new skill, break it down into micro chunks to make learning way easier for students.  It is easier for them to learn if the material is chunked.  Let students talk to each other, ask questions, comment, and help each other via a back chat channel.  Often times, students can explain it  to each other in a way that makes sense.

5.  Be sure to include visuals when going from concrete to abstract to help students see the connection.  In addition to the teacher providing visuals, have students see if they can provide their own visualization of the concept.

6.  Look into using choice boards, or menus so students get a choice in how they do the assignment.  Provide different levels of choice so they can choose something easy, something of medium difficulty and something that might be a bit difficult for them.

7. Try to provide more tasks, open ended questions, low floor - high ceiling activities so students have to think and do not answer rote based questions.

8. Assume when you do an activity that is server heavy such as Quizzes, or Kahoot, the internet might slow down to the point, they can't do it.  There are some activities that can be done individually  while others work better in real time.

9.  Have "office hours" when students can meet with you one on one or in small groups to get their questions answered, get the help they can't get at home, and to provide security.

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Remember, no matter how much you plan, get together the best lesson ever, things are going to go wrong.  Go with the flow.  Have a great day.

Using Student Made Books.

 Since school moved to distance learning, our school choose to send out packets in both a digital form and hard copy.  If a student wants a hard copy, they can get it when they get their lunch.  I am not allowed to introduce new material but I can create activities and work that focuses on work they've already learned.

Since most of my students do have phones, I asked them to take pictures of certain mathematical things, then create a digital book with the photo's and an explanation of the math.

This way they are the ones finding the real life applications of math.  They are creating the book, and they are the ones who tell me all about it.

They've been asked to find all the different shapes they can in town.  They had to identify the shape, where it was found and explain why they chose the shape.

Another activity was to create a recipe of something they made at home.  They had to include measurements, directions, a photo of the finished product, the number of people it fed, and how to cut the recipe in half with the new measurements.

Then there is the activity where students walk around the village, looking for places that use math, provide photo's and explain the math used.  They might show a photo of the gas pumps with a ATV being filled next to it.  They explain how the total amount is calculated, how filling the engine is actually an inequality, and any other places, they can find.

They might snap a picture of their parent who is make masks for the local clinic.  They can show the pieces and how they are sewn together along with measurements for each part, and a photo of the finished product.

Once they have all the materials together, they can put the book together using pages, or google slides, or iBook author, or any other program like that.

Pages - allows you to choose making a book in portrait or landscape when they open a new templet for the book.  The students put their pictures in the book, text, and everything they want included.  Then they export it as either a pdf or e-pub format.

Google slides - create the book using one slide per page.  When done, save it as a pdf file and you have a book.

These books are not hard to make and when students do them, they have a way to show they understand where the math is found in real life.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.

Warm-up

A coconut tree produces between 50 and 100 coconuts a year.  It takes 10 coconuts to make 1 liter of oil.  If 1 gallon = 3.75 liters, then how many gallons of oil can be made fro 80 coconuts?

Warm-up

If a coconut tree produces about 50 coconut each year and produces for 60 years, how many coconuts does it produce total?

Flashcards Are For More Than Memorization

 When I grew, up they recommended you use flash cards to memorize your multiplication facts, learn definitions of vocabulary, and anything else you need to memorize.  I always had trouble using them this way because the material had no context for me.  I'm sure most of us remember using flash cards in the same way.

So are there better ways to use flashcards?  Definitely. They can be used to help move the information from your short term to long term memory.  There is a way to  use flashcards more effectively.

1.  Identify the key concepts from your notes or from your textbook.  Write the name of the concept on one side and the definition or explanation on the other side.  If it is a large concept like slopes, you might break the topic into smaller concepts like defining the slope, how to find the slope using a graph, or from coordinates, what does the slope tell you about the line, etc.  This makes it easier to learn all facets of the topic.

2.  Create more flashcards in a different color or with a different colored ink that ask you to elaborate or interact with the material.  These flashcards might ask you to describe the concept without using any of the key vocabulary from the first set of flashcards.  This set might ask you to draw a picture of the concept, or describe how the concept is used in real life.  You might be asked to explain it to someone who missed the material the day it was taught or when might you use it in your own life.

3.  Shuffle each stack of cards and select one from each pile.  Look at the concept and what you need to do with it before answering.  The concept might be inequalities and you are asked to find a real life example of it.  Your answer might be something like an inequality is an equation with an answer that is actually a range beginning at a certain number or ending at a certain number.  Your example might be when you fill your gas tank, you are using an inequality because you can put between 0 and say 20 gallons depending on how empty the tank is.

Rather than thinking of the answer in your head, it is important to either answer the question out loud or write the answer down.  This one steps helps you prepare your answer and actually use all the appropriate vocabulary.  It helps you monitor if you really "know" it.

4. As you are going through your stack, make sure you set the concepts aside you are having trouble with so you can look back at your notes or textbook to reinforce your knowledge.  As you review the concept, write it down or answer out loud because it helps reinforce your learning.

5.  Once you have learned your cards, swap cards with a friend and try to answer theirs. This shakes your brain up a bit so you have to think of the material in a different way.

When you do this, you are making your brain do more than simple recall.  It requires the brain to actively recall the material without giving context clues.  This causes your brain to create stronger connections among the neurons, so you are more likely to remember the information at a later time.

I wish I'd know this when I was in school, it would have made things easier for me.  I always looked at the front, then the back.  I didn't know about saying things out loud or writing them down.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.

Math Games

 For many teachers, it has become harder to work with students via distance learning.  The way we teach in class is not necessarily the method we can use via distance learning.  One way to change things around to make the lesson more interesting is to rely on math games.

There are several sites out there where students can play games designed to help them improve their math.  This is the perfect time to assign games to help scaffold the student to improve weak areas.

One site, Math Playground,  has a ton of free games covering so many different skills.  Although the games range from addition and subtraction, to multiplication and division, to fractions, money, geometry and pre-algebra, some of the games can be used for older children.

Some of the geometry games, have students reading the angle off a protractor to determine where the rocket is headed, practice perimeter, finding coordinate points, identify shapes, and other games.  In the pre-algebra section, there are games dealing with order of operations, finding the value of x, integers, exponents and so much more.

There are only two issues I have with the games.  First, some need an updated version of Adobe flash while none of the games I explored had instructions so you fumbled with them.  On the other hand, the games are divided into math games, logic games, math arcade, story math, and math videos.  The story math uses think blocks to help students learn to work through story problems step by step, using manipulatives.  Off hand I'd say this site is for elementary and middle school.

There is also Cool Math Games which has a variety of games ranging from skill, to logic, to number based games. Many of the games do not have the type of math basis I would expect but I'm not one for video games.  I do know that many of my 9th graders loved going here to play but you need to have adobe flash for many of the games.

Next is Hooda Math, a site with lots of different math games.  I've known children who would spend all their free time here.  First of all, this site can be shared with Google classroom. Second, it has over 350 games for all ages.  Towards the bottom of the page, you can find a grade level which takes you to a list of games geared for that age group.  At the bottom of the page, you can click on a skill and it will take you to a list of games geared for that skill or concept.

I clicked on the topic labeled Algebra.  In it I found at least 7 games that helped with solving different types of equations. At least four were more like multi-player type games and all were timed so the faster you accurately answered the equations, the higher the score you received and if you did well enough, you might wing.

I found some geometry games, including one called transformation golf where you identify the moves through translation, rotation, reflection, or dilation needed to get the golf ball into the hole and you move onto the next hole.  After each round, you  find out if you matched the par, were under or over.  At the end of 9 rounds, you could see how you did.  I rather enjoyed it because the choices limited you to using only certain moves.

Check this site out.  Since most of us are teaching via distance, these sites will provide practice for our students so the practice is not always the kill and drill variety. Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  have a great day.

Google Jamboard app.

Last week, I learned about an item in Google that can easily be used as part of your distance learning instruction.  Although it is also the name of a whiteboard you can hand on the wall in the classroom, it also has a mobile version.  This is the one I'll be sharing in today's column.

The big difference between this and many mobile whiteboards is that it allows students to add material while you are teaching.

It is called Jamboard and it is part of the Google line of products.  It can be accessed through the 3 by 3 grid in the upper right corner, next to your avatar.  You get this page when you open it up.

It comes with outfitted with enough things to teach classes.  Starting with the left side of the white board, it has  four different stylus and a choice of 6 different colors so you don't have to always write in black. There is one eraser only but this white board allows you to bring in a image and it has post-it notes in five different colors.  The last thing is a laser that allows you to use the curser as a pointer to highlight something.  

Across the top is an undo button, a put it back button, a background button with choices of plain, dots, ruled paper, graph paper, a graph paper with a different background, a blue or a black background.  

It is possible to take a photo or screen shot, import it and then write on it.  As far as I can tell one cannot type or use shapes on the web based version using Safari.  If you are on Safari, you can type but only with the sticky note.  The web based version does not have all the bells and whistles if you are using it on a Mac, PC, or older device.

If you download the app for either an apple or android based device, you will get access to all the bells and whistles.

If you click on the pen, you'll see the four writing implements, six colors but you also have access to the assistive technology tools that change your writing into text, straightens out shapes and such.  I don't like the writing to text part but the second choice is actually the best for making your writing or shapes so much nicer.

The app version also allows you to bring in content from your drive, allow use of the camera, and add stickers.  They actually offer more than just stickers.

It allows you to add in other things like dialog boxes, and comic frames so you can so a bit more.  The 2x + 3 = 7 was written with a stylus, not an Apple Pencil and I chose the middle option so it looks handwritten but it is just cleaned up.  It allowed me to draw some nice shapes and place lines on the graph paper.

It was used during a webinar I attended and we could all write something on the board of the host but it had to be open to share with people otherwise, you can't access it.  Since many of us need the interactive white board during our distance lessons, you might want to give it a try.  I've heard the newer touch screen Chrome books when accessing this, have access to all the tools.

This can be used during meeting on Google Hangout or Zoom, and can be integrated into Google Classroom.  I hope this opens up some possibilities for distance learning.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.  

Happy Easter.

Warm-up

If the people use 180 million eggs for Easter, how many dozen eggs is that?

Math and Easter.

 We don't often think of connecting Easter with math but they fit together quite well and open up opportunities to use these activities in your distance teaching.

When I talk about connecting math with Easter, I am not talking about those worksheets with problems and the answer tells you the color to put in the egg.  I am talking about math using real life information.

Yummy math has a nice activity where the student reads the description and then decides if the candy is solid or hallow.  They have to calculate the price per pound, price per inch, and it has them compare themselves to the piece of candy.  The second half of the activity has students make some educated guesses in regard to it's cost, and it's height.  As the final part, there is a picture of a huge Easter egg with a man standing next to it and the student is asked to make an educated guess as to it's height.

Another activity has students make three guess on the number of Peeps sold at Easter.  They are asked to make a guess they know is too low, then one that they think is too big, and one they think might be in the right neighborhood.  They have to decide what information they need to make a better guess.  The teacher then provides additional information to help them.  The class then lists all the guesses and finds the mean.  At the end, the teacher gives students the information, and students are asked to compare the mean with the actual estimate.

The third activity focuses on learning to read the back of a food coloring pack to determine the number of drops needed to create the proper dye for making Easter eggs.  The activity begins by having students make five observations about the chart before they answer questions that require some critical thinking.  The final activity asks more of a what if question that takes some thought.

Give your Pre-algebra and Algebra students additional practice with coordinate graphing by having them do Easter based cartesian coordinate art.  This one that uses all four quadrants to produce a picture of a rabbit and a chick.  If you don't like it try this one which is just a rabbit.

On the other hand, let your students practice reading infographics and interpreting them.  This site has 10 different infographics on Easter but only four deal with numerical information that could be used to create a graph.  Finally, this infographic has some great information on the amount of candy sold and what it equates to in terms of dump trucks, etc.

It is still possible in this world of social distancing to find activities we can do with our classes.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.

Virtual Manipulatives Are Great For Online Instruction.

 We are all undergoing fundamental changes to our teaching right now.  One day, classes were live and the next, teachers were scrambling to figure out how to teach virtually.  I don't know many teachers whose training classes taught them to teach virtually.

It can be difficult to send all the physical manipulatives home to students while expecting them not to loose pieces before they return them at the end of the year, if then.

So this opens up the perfect opportunity to use virtual or digital manipulatives.  No parts to loose and these are available as apps or online.  Manipulatives are great for representing abstract concepts in a concrete way.  They also help students make sense of problems because they form a visual representation of various concepts and lead students to developing a deeper, richer understanding of the concepts.

In addition, manipulatives help students build connections between the abstract concept and its representation. Virtual manipulatives have the ability to change in size, shape, or color which allows students to make more examples than the physical ones.  Some of the virtual manipulatives are programmed to provide hints and feedback to the students.

When selecting the manipulative, be sure it is linked to the concept being taught rather than using it as a separate activity.  They must be an major part of the progression from concrete to abstract.  They can make learning more interesting for students.  So time to look at some sites to find virtual manipulatives.

1.  Mathigon has a variety of manipulatives available on one page.  On one page, they have polygons, number tiles, number bars, fraction bars, algebra tiles, pentominos, an a tangram.  I have this activity in geometry where I have students take certain parts of the tangram to create other shapes like a concave pentagon or a convex heptagon.  This is a web based application and quite easy to use.

2.  Brainingcamp has manipulatives covering everything from reading a clock to base 10 blocks, to rods, to Algebra tiles.  I have their fractions app on my iPad and I like it because they have an introduction, before covering equivalent fractions, common denominators,  comparing and ordering them before showing how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions. Each topic has a lesson, the manipulative, questions, and a challenge.  

Their Algebra tiles manipulatives are said to cover adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing integers, modeling and simplifying expressions, solving equations, solving systems of equations, adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing polynomials, factoring trinomials, or completing the square.  These manipulatives can be used on just about any type of device.  Furthermore, the website says they are giving free access until the end of June.

They have an app called manipulative of the week which allows subscribers to access all their activities but for those who are not subscribers, it lets people check out one each week to see how they work.

3. Mathies is a site for the Ontario K - 12 school system.  The offer manipulatives for use either via the web or as free apps for either apple based or android based devices.  In order to do the web based applications, your computer needs the most up to date flash.  They have apps to cover pattern blocks, money, fraction strips, fraction representative match, color tiles, and a couple of other things.

They offer their own version of algebra tiles complete with instructions on how to use it for integers, expressions, multiplying polynomials, factoring, solving equations, and tells you about all the tools that come with the algebra tiles.  These are all free.

4. Geoboards by math learning center is a virtual geoboard complete with virtual rubber bands.  It has a web version, Chrome version, and apple based version, all for free.  Anything you want to do with a geoboard, you can do with this.  At my last school, I had this app on my iPads and the kids loved using it.  I've used this app when we did area and perimeter in geometry among other topics.  I often asked students to create as many different rectangles as they could with  32 square units.  They'd make one, take a screen shot, find another with another screen shot, and at the end, they could put it together to submit.

5. Geogebra has a section with virtual manipulatives ranging from pattern blocks to color tiles, to rulers and protractors.  I like the virtual protractor because it allows you to set the angle before you practice using the protractor to measure it.  It also gives you the choice of two different types of protractors and they can check their answer after they get an answer.


6.  National Library of Virtual Manipulatives - is a site with a variety of different virtual manipulatives for kindergarten to high school.  The manipulatives are also divided into strands from number & operations to  Algebra to data analysis.  Unfortunately, you have to have the correct form of java for it to work so unless the device has the most current version, it might not work.  I have used it in the past but I haven't recently.

Zoom Is Changing!

 Most of us are trying to figure out how to meet the needs of all our students while meeting the dictates of the school district for conducting classes.  Many districts asked teachers to conduct class using some sort of video conferencing software.

Some went with Google hangouts while others mandated their employees use Zoom .  I've been on webinars that used Zoom and Zoom says the number of meetings has increased from 10 million a day to 200 million per day due to the Coronavirus.  This increase has shown there was a major security problem developed with this program.

First of all, Zoom is easy to use, easy to set up and allows you to have up to 100 people at any one time for free but certain people have discovered they can disrupt meetings by file sharing inappropriate photos or make all sorts of sounds.  As long as the person knows the meeting information, they can get in.  Yes, the moderator can throw them out but they can join with a new id.

It is possible to cut down on this happening to any meeting by making sure the invites go to only those who are expected to attend.  Another way is to require a password to attend the meeting.  The host can change it so only he or she is able to screen share.  The host can also set it up so people go to a waiting room before being admitted to the actual conference, or lock the meeting after it starts so no one else can join.  The final step would be to shut down file sharing

The waiting room feature is a direct result of the the bombing initiated by outside persons.  By shuffling everyone into the waiting room, hosts make sure only those invited to the meeting are admitted.  Furthermore, they've set up a direct link for attendees to come in rather than just using a meeting number or you'll need a password.  This change is also a result of being hacked.

As for other concerns including great encryption, good privacy controls, and excellent security have been voiced by others.  At one point, Zoom was sharing information with Facebook but that has stopped.  In addition, people found there were ways for hackers to spy on people via the built in camera or microphone but Zoom said they've release fixes for this problem.  In fact, according to Zoom, they are focusing on security and privacy issues brought up by the public rather than looking at ways to expand their product.

Specifically Zoom is looking at clearing up its encryption practices, providing fixes for all Mac based issues, eliminating the sharing of data with Facebook, work with security experts to understand and improve security details for all clients, improve its bug finding bounty, and so many other things.  Zoom has indicated they will continue making it's product more secure but in the process it will become more complex to use.

Keep this in mind if you are using Zoom.  Yes, I've liked Zoom for the meetings I've gone to.  It was easy but I haven't used it since the hacking started.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.

Warm-up

If it takes 7 gallons of milk to produce 6 pounds of cheese, how many gallons of milk does it take to make 150 pounds of cheese?

Warm-up

If one cow can produce enough milk for 2.9 pounds of butter every day, how many pounds of butter will a cow have produced at the end of a month.

Algebra Tycoon

Algebra Tycoon is a free app for both Apple and Android systems.  The object behind the game is to grow your money as fast as you can by investing it.  Your goal is to reach a worth of $1,000,000,000 or more.

You begin by investing in a bagel shop.  It shows how much you are earning constantly at the top of the screen and as you earn money you can buy another bagel shop or perhaps a Laundromat.  If you want to earn money even faster, you can test your Math Knowledge.

You click on the math lab tab to practice your math knowledge.  A new screen comes up giving you a choice of topics to practice such as evaluating expressions or rational and irrational numbers.


You are given 5 questions from the topic to answer. The more questions you get, the more money you get.  If you miss a question, it tells you why you missed it and explains it immediately so there is good feedback. It often asks some of the same questions again and again but this is not bad because it helps reinforce what you are learning.

In addition, you must answer all the questions in the section to get the most mathematical knowledge monies you can.  The questions are based on the New York regents exam but the questions of themselves are good for any Algebra student.

There are so many topics and questions that it will take a person quite a while to get all of them answered.  There were a few questions I had trouble answering because they'd been phrased differently than I'm used to.


While you are working on the questions your money is growing, you are adding to your wealth while making sure you are solid in your understanding of Algebra I topics.

The nice thing about this is that it is a game where you try to become a billionaire.  It is a nice way to practice math, while becoming rich.  It is kind of a monopoly game but you are playing against yourself.  Honestly, it is the closest I'll come to owning this much.

Check it out.  I have really enjoyed answering the math problems while watching my wealth grow to the point, I could purchase things worth several million.

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.

Happy April Fools Day!