My students desired to do something completely different... Science Mondays

Asian eggplants are the ones in the front


One of the first rules for teaching is to understand that your students may just be even more groggy than you are on a Monday morning.

This summer I am teaching math for the first time in over a decade. Most of the students have had some algebra so we have been reviewing some skills to keep them in good working order when their regular teacher returns in the fall.

This morning I asked them if they wanted to do some algebra or to do something completely different. By the end of the class we were almost ready to figure out the density of an Asian eggplant.

I pulled eleven recently harvested eggplants out of the fridge and drew a chart using a garden marker... Length, circumference, and weight were measured.

We then manipulated c=2 pi r to determine the radius. Then we headed towards the formula of the volume of a cylinder, which led to a discussion between the difference between volume and density, which they understood as the time for lunch arrived.

Maybe next Sunday I will update this post with the results of the density calculations. Yesterday I updated about a friend, a fire victim, and a food issue.