Comments on: Dy/Dan Teacher Prep Academy â€” Certification Exam Question #42

By: James Key

James Key — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 19:12:03 +0000

How do I apply to dy/Dan Teacher Prep Academy? I will pack up all my worldly belongings *right now* to enroll full-time!

By: Touzel

Touzel — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 19:45:00 +0000

Kathy, I also immediately thought about the IMP unit “Small World, Isn’t It?” (http://www.mathimp.org/curriculum/AppendixA.html). I haven’t taught Year 3 yet, but I’m really looking forward to it.

I like the implications of the flier. The student conversations would be fascinating. The pros are obvious, but what detriments are there to living together so closely? What about people that don’t like living so densely? How would we protect ourselves from the increased risk of attack (by having such a concise target)? (Sheesh–I sound like I’m from Orange County).

By: David Sarpal

David Sarpal — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 22:27:43 +0000

Thinking in this manner is quite a trend across the world. Here is an article in the Guardian U.K. that you and your readers might be interested in:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/22/un-cities-mega-regions

By: SciPub » Blog Archive » Cruising the blogosphere

SciPub » Blog Archive » Cruising the blogosphere — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 05:46:15 +0000

[…] always great Dan Meyer has a What Can You Do With This (WCYDWT) style post about how to turn the following infographic […]

By: Bea Cantor

Bea Cantor — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 18:54:57 +0000

This could be such a cool cross-disciplinary project. So, beyond just people and square miles, what would traffic look like? Garbage collection? Water treatment and distribution? The electric grid? would we lose our accents, or would they become “micro-accents” based on your neighborhood? I can imagine some really interesting short stories coming out of this sci-fi scenario. Social studies would work on how to administer the place. I would imagine laws would have to change, and kids could discuss how and why. Just think of the redistricting issues…Do we draw the line along city blocks, or along city blocks AND up to a certain level in the skyscraper?

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:14:38 +0000

In Detroit this is not as much a hypothetical. As the population shrinks and whole blocks are abandoned, there is some discussion of having some land revert to farmland. Detroit occupies 140 square miles. How much could be “abandoned” to farms?

By: Kendall

Kendall — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:16:44 +0000

Your question got me thinking and researching a little. I found a nice map that might work well with a discussion/lesson on this topic.

http://www.time.com/time/covers/20061030/where_we_live/

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 02:32:11 +0000

Looking at the relative population density of their homes vs their schools/classrooms might be a stepping stone to making things more concrete.

By: Kathy H

Kathy H — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:59:01 +0000

IMP 3 has a whole unit on this – how long will it take for each individual in the world to occupy one square foot of land? You’ve got to figure out usable sq miles of land, convert to sq feet, and evaluate linear, quadratic and exponential functions as population predictors. The derivative is introduced along with e. Overall, a good unit. The kids get a little freaked out when I tell them they’re doing calculus by calculating the slope of the tangent line!

By: Katie

Katie — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 22:51:33 +0000

maybe give them tape measures and ask them to figure out how big their houses/apartments are (give them more specific instructions)? then divide by the number of people living there to get their own house’s pop. density?

then what if you marked out a 800 sq feet somewhere (outside?) and work through calculations together to see that 35,000 people per square mile is about 1 person per 800 sq feet (this sort of ignores the fact that there’s a lot of other stuff in cities besides where people live, maybe as a class you could agree to halve that for living space?)

then you’d have to talk about how people can live on top of each other, how does that change all the stuff we just calculated

maybe the final result is designing a comfortable city (how many skyscrapers – how tall?) to fit everyone into one state?