Math Fun! Summer Assignment answers

1. What is one million times one thousand? Show your work in scientific notation and give the answer in scientific notation and in words.

1 billion or 109

106 x 103 = 109

2. A population of deer had 200 individuals. If the population grows by 15% in one year, how many deer will there be the next year?

200 x 0.15 = 30 200 + 30 = 230

3. This year there are 28 AP Environmental Science students and next year there will be 60 AP Environmental Science students. What percentage did the population of APES students grow by?

60 - 28 = 32 student increase 32/28 = x/100 x = 114%

4. Electricity costs 6 cents per kilowatt hour. In one month, one home uses one megawatt hour of electricity. How much will the electric bill be? (Use the prefixes above for assistance)

$0.06/1 kWh x 1000 kWh/1 mWh = $60.00

5. Your car gets 15 miles to the gallon and your friend’s car gets 25 miles to the gallon. You decide to go on a road trip to Virginia Beach, which is 300 miles away. If gas costs $4.00 per gallon and you decide to split the gas money, how much money will you save in gas by driving your friend’s car?

Your car – 1 gallon / 15 miles x 300 miles = 20 gallons of gas needed

Friend’s car – 1 gallon / 25 miles x 300 miles = 12 gallons of gas needed

Your car’s cost of trip – 20 gallons x $4 / gallon = $80

Friend’s car’s cost of trip – 12 gallons x $4 / gallon = $48

Difference = $32 so your share of savings is $16

6. Manhattan is 2 miles wide and 17 miles long. If one inch of rain falls on Manhattan, then how many cubic feet of rain fell on Manhattan? (Hint: convert all units to feet first)

1 mile = 5,280 ft

Area of Manhattan = (2 x 5,280) x (17 x 5,280) = 947,865,600 sq ft

1 inch of rain = 0.833 ft

Volume of one inch of rain on Manhattan = 0.0833 ft x 947,865,600 sq ft = 78,672,844 = 7.9 x 107 cubic feet

7. An mp3 takes up about 16 kilobytes of memory per second of music. If you owned a one terabyte hard drive and filled it with only mp3s, then how many days of music would you have stored?

1012 bytes x 1 second / 16 x 103 bytes = 62,500,000 seconds x 1 hour / 3600 seconds = 17,361.1111 h

17,361.1111 h x 1 day / 24 hours = 723.4 days

9/12/13

Tonight's homework is to complete Assignment 4 (Parts A and B) and be ready for tomorrow's math check-in.

Assignment 4A - Calculating Your Ecological Footprint

Using the information from Assignment 3, choose one of the following two links to determine your impact upon the environment.

Earth Day Network Footprint Calculator (a little easier, but might be wonky on your laptop and won't work on your phone)
Center for Sustainable Economy's Footprint Quiz (more detailed, but will work on your phone)

Assignment 4B - Reflecting On Your Ecological Footprint

Answer all of the following questions to the best of your ability and in complete sentences.

1. Define ecological footprint.

2a. What is your ecological footprint?

2b. What is your reaction to your ecological footprint? How do you feel about it?

3. The average American consumes 30 times more resources than the average citizen of India. What is the value of being able to calculate your consumption of resources and see it evaluated in a relatively objective manner?

4. What is the connection between our ecological footprint and our discussions of sustainability?

9/11/13

Tonight's homework is to complete Assignment 3. See below if necessary.

Assignment #3 - Thinking About Sustainability and Our Own Lives

Answer each of the following questions to the best of your ability.

On Sustainability

1. Which one or more of the four scientific principles of sustainability are involved in each of the following actions?

a. recycling a soda can

b. using a rake instead of a leaf blower

c. choosing to have no more than one child

d. walking to class instead of driving

e. taking your own reusable bags to the grocery store to carry things home in

f. volunteering in a prairie restoration project

g. lobbying elected officials to require that 20% of your country’s electricity be produced by renewable wind power by 2020

2. Read the following statements, choose the 5 that you find the most interesting, controversial, etc. and explain to what degree you agree with them and why you feel as such.

a. Humans are superior to other forms of life.

b. Humans are in charge of the earth.

c. All economic growth is good.

d. The value of other forms of life depends only on whether they are useful to us.

e. Because all forms of life eventually become extinct, we should not worry about whether our activities cause their premature extinction.

f. All forms of life have an inherent right to exist.

g. Nature has an almost unlimited storehouse of resources for human use.

h. Technology can solve our environmental problems.

i. I do not believe I have any obligation to future generations.

j. I do not believe I have any obligation to other forms of life.

Thinking About Our Own Lives

3. Gather and record as much of the following information as you can. This information will be used tomorrow to help you determine and calculate your impacts upon the Earth.

a. Ask your parents/guardians how much your home’s electric bill usually is. Also ask if the electricity you purchase comes from renewable resources.

b. Using the internet (ex. Google maps), determine the distance of your commute to school and any job, internship, etc. that you frequently attend.

c. Think back on any trips you have taken in the past year. Record where you went, how you got there (ex. car, bus, airplane), and research about how far away the place was.

d. Record as many different foods that you have eaten in the last week as you can.

e. Ask your parents/guardians how your apartment/house is heated (ex. oil, electricity, natural gas), how your water is heated, and how your stove works (provided there is one present).

f. Investigate the cleaning products in your home to see if there are any that are non-toxic or biodegradable.

g. Determine what you types of things your household recycles and how often. In addition, determine how often your household empties its garbage(s).

Student Opportunities

Mr. Z has compiled an amazing list of opportunities in math and science for students. You should definitely check it out here.

9/10/13

Your homework tonight is to prepare for tomorrow's geography assessment and to take reading about sustainability to help prepare you tomorrow's mini-lecture. Click on the link and read Section 1.1 through 1.3 of the chapter. Take notes in your own words about ideas, terms, examples, etc. that you think are important.

Please email me if you are having trouble accessing the article... unless you are trying from a smartphone. In that case, use a computer or get to school early and access a computer there. 

See the earlier posting explaining the summer assignment for the material that you need to study and be familiar with for tomorrow's geography assessment.

Just in case, Assignment 2 questions are posted below.

Assignment #2 – Analyzing A Case Study

Answer the following questions about the case study to the best of your ability in complete sentences on another piece of paper.

1. Summarize the case study. Include an identification of and description of the environmental problems in the case study, their causes, and the solutions/remediation efforts.

2. What lessons that can be learned and applied from the environmental transformation in this case study?

For 12D:

9/9/13

Tonight's homework is to read and sign the syllabus/contract, bring a binder/lab notebook, prepare for the geography and math assessments later this week (Wednesday and Monday), and complete Assignment 1. In order to do so, you will need to read "The Tragedy of the Commons" by Garrett Hardin. If need be, the associated questions can be found below. Since some parts of "The Tragedy of the Commons" are a bit dense, some additional helpful readings can be found below.

"No Panaceas!" Elinor Ostrom talks with Fran Korten
"Fisheries: Lost property" from the Economist

Thoroughly answer all of the following questions to the best of your ability in complete sentences on another piece of paper.

1a. Describe and explain your results in Part 1.

1b. Describe and explain your results in Part 2. Discuss how they compared to Part 1.

2. Explain the rationale for your fishing technique in each part.

3. What is the “tragedy of the commons?”

4. Why does common usage lead to exploitation?

5. What would be an ideal way to manage the commons pond? Explain.

Summer Writing Assignment Rubric

	Mastery – 4	Proficient – 3	Satisfactory – 2	Needs Revision – 1
Claim	States clear, well-reasoned, nuanced claim and counterclaim	States clear, well-reasoned claim and counterclaim	States a logical, but vague claim	States an illogical or indefensible position
Support of claim	Thoroughly supports claims with several detailed, convincing, specific reasons/pieces of evidence as well as refuted counterclaims	Supports claims with multiple detailed, specific reasons/pieces of evidence as well as attempts at forming counterclaims/ refutations of them	Supports claims with multiple detailed, convincing specific reasons/pieces of evidence but neglects to make use of counterclaim	Supports claims with reasons/ evidence that are not convincing due to lack of detail, specificity, or clarity OR not having enough pieces of evidence to support each claim
Demonstrates knowledge	Consistently demonstrates deep knowledge of material in readings by constantly: using vocabulary, explaining examples clearly, incorporating statistics, etc.	Consistently demonstrates knowledge of material in readings by: using vocabulary, explaining examples clearly, incorporating statistics, etc and minor errors or occasions for further explanation may be present	Demonstrates knowledge of material in readings by using vocabulary, etc. but with multiple or glaring errors or lack of a detail	Does not demonstrate sufficient knowledge of material from readings through errors or lack of usage/ explanation.
Credit to sources	While writing in his/her own words, correctly completes an APA/MLA formatted bibliography AND properly cites within text	While writing in his/her own words, completes an APA/MLA formatted bibliography AND cites within text with minor errors	While writing in his/her own words, completes an APA/MLA formatted bibliography AND cites within text with minor errors but with clear errors	Bibliography, citations, or both are missing or it is obvious that student is not giving due credit to sources through his/her style of writing
Writing conventions	Writes elegantly and in a sophisticated manner while very consistently adhering to spelling and grammar conventions	Very consistently adheres to spelling and grammar conventions	Consistently adheres to spelling and grammar conventions	Mostly adheres to spelling and grammar conventions