A Math Problem I’d Love to See Assigned – but Probably Won’t
Saturday, 16 February 2008 Clay Burell 
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Problem:
Your school building has 100 rooms. Each room has 32 florescent lights of n wattage. The hallways and bathrooms have an additional 300 florescent lights of the same wattage. These lights are on for an average of ten hours a day.
1. Given the cost per lightbulb run at ten hours a day, how much does your school pay each month for lighting?
2. If the school changed its bulbs to (your preferred energy-saving lightbulb here), how much would the school save per month in electricity bills?
3. If the school turned off hallway and classroom lights during peak daylight hours, and relied simply on sunlight from the ample windows in all buildings, how much money would the school save per month?
Test:
Present your findings to the school administration in a proposal that they make the change.
–
I’d give anything to find a math teacher who would pose such a problem, and such a test, to our students. I doubt my odds of succeeding in such a search.
“It doesn’t fit the curriculum.” Or: “How do I assess that?” Or: “It’s too messy.” Or: “I don’t have time.”
Any stories out there of similar projects in other schools?
And how could we measure the carbon footprint of the school’s electricity use, and the reduction in carbon emissions by taking the measures listed above?
(Thanks to Karl Fisch for inspiring the thought in his comment to the “Did You Ever Wonder?” video post. Lindsea of Students 2.0 also inspired this question.)
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No. 1 — February 16th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I’m willing to take up the challenge. My school will be ecstactic. We are always looking for authentic maths investigations. I will let you know the outcomes via our maths wiki when they are complete.
Thanks for the idea.
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No. 2 — February 16th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Cool, Lenva, please do.
We should talk about integrating this with Project Global Cooling in this simple way: try to spread such green schools math project/proposal methods to other math teachers at other schools around the world, and keep track of how much carbon reduction worldwide our little maths projects have resulted in the real world.
Please, please, please let this flower. Seems so easy, doesn’t it?
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No. 3 — February 16th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Hi Clay. This year and last I did something similar to what you proposed, working with 8th graders (links below). It was interesting to note how it took some convincing to get the math teacher I had partnered with for this project (I’m a tech facilitator) to get on board. He could see that it would be messy and that we didn’t have all the answers. Being real-world problems, that needed real-world thinking, I agreed with him, telling him (and later the students) that it would be messy at times and we were bound to make wrong turns. Luckily, I was partnered with an excellent, open-minded math teacher who eventually jumped in with two feet.
When students were first told that we, the teachers, didn’t have the answers they seemed somewhat shocked. Obviously, they are used to the teacher having “the answer”. I would tell them, “If we had the answers, we wouldn’t be asking you to do this.” Eventually they got it and began to see how unschooly and real it was.
It was also interesting to see how many of the students that consistently made honor roll, were in JNHS, and were generally considered great students, had no clue how to go about solving these problems. These were the kids that 1) cared about grades, 2) knew how to “play” the system. (Not blaming the kids; it’s the system that’s not working.) It was great to often see the kids that weren’t considered the “best” students, flourished under these real circumstances.
If you’re willing to put up with some messiness, I would highly recommend this real-world approach to learning. It’s very fulfilling for both student and teacher.
http://tiny.cc/pbl
http://tiny.cc/obb
Bill Farren’s last blog post..Study Shows ?Smartest? Schools Could be Least Happy
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No. 4 — February 17th, 2008 at 12:29 am
talking about, KIS?
We really need a change.
For our school, for the world, and for the future.
Hopefully PGC is going to make progress and become successful.
(sorry for the irrelevance
)
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No. 5 — February 17th, 2008 at 2:10 am
Have you seen this: http://www.earthhour.org/
I will also send this link to our math teachers and see what they say, although we have one teacher who is skeptical about global warming.
Jabiz Raisdana’s last blog post..Utopian Classroom
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No. 6 — February 17th, 2008 at 5:02 am
Reminds me of a math problem we did a few years ago. My school was built in the early 60′s and the plumbing is a joke. So most of the water faucets in classrooms drip. The room next to mine was especially bad, so one day I put a quart container under it and timed how long it took to fill. Then in class later we figured out how much water was going down that one sink every second, minute, hour, school day (six hours), day, week, month and year. It was close to hundred per 24 hour day.
We submitted our results to our principal and the next day they came out and worked on it and slowed it way down – can’t stop the leaks completely because the problem is under the floor which is concrete slab … but I wonder if we ran around and did every sink in the school and then averaged that with all the schools in our district built in that era that are the same design (probably 10 anyhow) might be interesting info. Especially since we live in the high desert and water is a huge issue!
Brian
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No. 7 — February 17th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
The collaborative that I work for has an energy consultant that has energy consumption data for all the school in the area. School have been forced to make energy audits and employ energy saving measures because of economic pressure from the voters. The question I want my students to answer is how much energy would you save in your house if you switched to CF bulbs? Make it more personal. Another project I have looked into is paper/plastic bags at the store. If 100 families switched to all cloth shopping bags what would be saved in energy costs and resources. Then extend it out to 1000 families, etc. Sometimes the energy problems seems so big to a 16 year old that even if them want to do something them are over whelmed. Showing them how making a personal change can have the “butterfly effect”.
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No. 8 — February 17th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
My school faced an energy audit not that long ago themselves, although economically motivated. The results have been…interesting. I’m still not clear on the part about turning off the heat at 3pm everyday and then having to reheat the building in the morning being more energy efficient. Doesn’t it take more energy to heat the building up? also, still using flourescent light bulbs.
“relied simply on sunlight from the ample windows in all buildings”
Ha. hahahaha. Most rooms don’t have windows. Those that do (like mine, finally) have one or two tiny windows. When I turn the lights off except for the window you can see enough to write if the projector is also on, but it’s pretty dark.
Anyway, it’s a good suggestion.
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No. 9 — February 19th, 2008 at 3:09 am
Great idea for some real-world learning, Clay. (Reminds me of a project I wrote about a few years back: http://www97.intel.com/odyssey/story.aspx?storyid=337)
Exciting to imagine all the directions this could go once students become informed about the issue (by gathering their own data). Then they’re primed to become advocates for real change–at school, at home, in the larger community. Seems like the kind of learning experience they would remember.
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No. 10 — February 26th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Hey Clay love the math problem. I will pass it on to my math department. I await their answers.
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