[ale] [OT] Software and file formats for on-line/correspondence chemical education

[Ron Frazier]

The point was to teach the students unit conversions, and how to solve 
such a problem by completely documenting it and providing appropriate 
ratios and conversion factors at each step and writing down each step so 
someone else could follow it, or grade it.  So, we convert trips to 
miles, miles to feet, feet to inches, inches to bills, etc.  The point 
was not to solve the problem in 5 minutes in your head, in which case 
they get a zero for the part where they are required to show their work.

Ron

On 1/22/2012 5:40 PM, Drifter wrote:
> You've got to be kidding.  It really took more than 90 seconds to solve
> this problem?
>
> If a dollar bill is 6" long, then 2 to the foot.
> at 5,280 feet to the mile that is 10,650 bills to the mile. (btm)
> tack 5 zeros on to the end gets you to the moon: 1,065,000,000 bills.
> double that to get the round trip total: 2,130,000,000 bills.
>
> My opinion of DeVry students just took a significant hit.
>
> Sean
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>    
>> On 1/21/12 2:43 PM, Ron Frazier wrote:
>>      
>>> I was once teaching a basic math class at DeVry.  I spent most of a
>>> class period and filled up two white boards doing this exact type of
>>> conversions.  My hypothetical question to the class was, how many
>>> dollar bills (assuming 6" long) would it take to reach end to end to
>>> and from the moon if the moon is 100,000 mi. away (I don't really
>>> know how far away the moon is).  It was quite interesting, and the
>>> example, which I made up on the spur of the moment, turned out to be
>>> a bit harder and longer to solve that I thought.  However, I think I
>>> made my point of how critical it is to keep track of all the units
>>> at each point and write your ratios in the right order, so if you
>>> need inches / ft., you don't write ft. / inch.  We finally got the
>>> answer, using no automated conversions on the calculator at all.  I
>>> was rather proud of the example, but I think the students were glad
>>> when the bell rang.
>>>
>>> Sincerely,
>>>
>>> Ron
>>>
>>> On 1/21/2012 10:37 AM, Tom Freeman wrote:
>>>
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>>        
>>>> To continue with a sequence of conversions:
>>>>                        _75.2 in_ = _?_ cm_
>>>>
>>>> convert in ->    cm      1 in       2.54 cm  ===>    191.008 cm
>>>>
>>>>                        _191.008_cm   = _?_m_
>>>>
>>>> convert cm ->    m      100 cm         1 m   ===>    1.91008 m
>>>>
>>>>                        _1.91008_m_  = _?_Km_
>>>>
>>>> convert m ->    Km      1000 m        1 Km   ===>    0.00191008 Km
>>>>          

-- 

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Ron Frazier

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