This lesson is just one of many that are designed to help teachers take advantage of Internet resources and to teach mathematical concepts in new and exciting ways. The lesson provides the following scenerio, you're sitting in math class, minding your own business, when in walks a Bill Gates kind of guy - the real success story of your school. He's made it big, and now he has a job offer for you that lasts only thirty days. In terms of pay, you'll have your choice of two payment options: 1)One cent on the first day, two cents on the second day, and double your salary every day thereafter for the thirty days or 2) exactly $1,000,000. What's not surprising is that most students will immediately choose the $1,000,000. However, how far into their calculations will their minds change? With the use of a table, students will be able to develop and evaluate inferences and predictions that are based on their data. Not only will students uncover patterns and write a equation or formula based on their patterns, but this lesson will also lead into a discussion of exponentional functions and their graphs. Teachers and students will find this lesson to be a rich and rewarding mathematical exploration.
First Posted: 8/31/2003
Last Submitted: 2/25/2002 7:48:45 PM
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Homesite Description - This resource is contained in the following Web site
Cynthia Lanius' Homepage
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This site contains lessons, essays about girls getting involved with computer science, Web-based presentations, and other resources.
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http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/
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