Update to Connections

While I should note that his calculations were not accurate, I am still impressed that he was making these connections and doing calculations in his head. It's the concepts that he's using that are so important. :)

Update:  Today in class we revisited the calculations that my star student made yesterday.  I was so impressed with the way he was thinking and making great connections, that I wanted to emphasize to the rest of the class how wonderful I thought it was.  I also wanted to make sure he was able to recalculate and come to a closer estimate of his math problem.  Together, we worked throught he problem like this:

There are 5,280 feet in 1 mile and approximately 50 miles between the two closest points of the continents. 5,280 x 50 = 264,000.  Then we multiplied 264,000 x 12 to get inches and came up with a total of 3,168,000 inches!!  Next, we looked at the rate of continental drift (approximately 1 inch per year).  Since the continents are drifting toward each other, they are actually moving 2 inches per year closer.  So, we divded 3,168,000 by 2 and came up with approximately 1,584,000 years until the continents collide!  There was so much thinking involved and all of the students participated.  I love my classes!!!