Here is another problem you might run into with today's student--probably
was true in the past too. This one might well surprise you if you checked
it out even with your science students and engineers--although I would
expect that group to be better.
The problem is innumeracy--and it is a problem reported to me from other
disciplines as well. Students have almost NO feel, no instinct for numbers.
Here is my example. 1st day of my gen-ed Energy class, I give a little quiz
to see what they know (very little). The first two questions ask for the
approximate population of the U.S. and the approximate population of the
world. Here is a list of the answers I got this year.
Note that they are better with the world than their own country. It is also
really sad to realize that we are situated about 90 minutes from Chicago.
Check out all the answers under 10 million!
Anyway, you might want to try something like this (or maybe not). You can
ask other things like the budget for the U.S. or how much money Bill Gates
has, or almost anything involving numbers. We also need to deal with this
in our classes--or at least with students who have so little feel for
numbers.
Rick
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Richard W. Tarara
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN
rtarara@saintmarys.edu
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Free Physics Software
PC & Mac
www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara/software.html
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