What’s Goin’ On In Room 133

Posts Tagged ‘expression’

Welcome back, Colleagues!  Let’s get right to it!

The link below will lead you to the worksheet that I gave out today to create your crossword puzzle.  To get full credit, you only need to use five words going across and five different words going down (nothing backwards, diagonal or anything llike that).  Want extra credit?  Use more words!

Make up clues that use verbal and numeric expressions as well as definitions.  Mix them up, so you’re not using the same clue format all the time.  Make it look good and turn it in for grade!

Git yer puzzle here, Colleagues!

The final speed of a falling object is found by using the expression v + 9.8t, where v is the speed when you begin timing and t  is the length of time the object falls.  Find the final speed when the object starts falling at 3 meters per second and falls for 2 seconds.  (Oh, we’re getting into it now, baby!)

UPDATED Dec 6, 2009:  And for a real easy one – check this out.   This problem has nothing to do with the speed problem above; this problem is “ripped from the headlines”!  It’s all about money, secrecy and good old government spending!  

Right now, President Barack Obama is having a tough time getting Congress to cough up billions (some would say trillions!) of dollars to take care of Americans at home.  Well, just over 200 years ago, President Thomas Jefferson had to “sneak around” to get Congress to make another major commitment as well, but what he had in mind was Americans pulling up stakes and leaving their homes for the Great Unknown. 

What was this about?  President Jefferson wanted Congress to fund the 8,000-mile expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.  It took (that is, the expedition took)  28 months to complete and it “provided the US government with its first glimpse of the vast lands that lay west of the Mississippi River”, according to the good folks at the National Archives.  And how much did President Jefferson want?  No less than the unholy sum of $2,500! 

Check out the SECRET LETTER from Pres Jefferson to Congress asking for the green!

So, the Word Problem is: How much did the Lewis & Clark Expedition cost per mile?  How much did it cost per month?  Do you think we got our money’s worth?  Rock on, colleagues!

We know about different types of expressions now – first verbal, then numeric and now we know what an algebraic expression is.  We also know how to substitue values (plug in numbers) and evaluate our algebraic expressions if we are told how much ’x’ is equal to.   We’ll practice with the idea of having a letter variable in our calculations a little more by looking at questions #31 and 32 on page 20.