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[Phys-l] innumeracy



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.

500 million, 45 billion
600 million, 8.1 billion
1.4 billion, 7 billion
6 million, 13 million
800 million, 5 billion
6 million, 3.8 billion
100 million, 7 billion
600 million, 6 billion
2.5 billion, 7 billion
100 million, 2 billion
4 billion, 42 billion
300 million, 6 billion
300 million, 6 billion (maybe copied from the above!)
2 billion, 25 billion
600 million, 6 billion
5 million, 3.6 billion
3.5 billion, 300 billion
3.4 million, 4 billion
5 billion, 100 billion
4 million, 3.9 billion
28 million, 57 billion
80 million, 1 billion
6 million, 200 million
800,000 , 6 billion
3 billion, 20 billion
300 million, 3 billion
32 million, 500 million
2 billion, 6 billion
4 billion, 12 billion
12.2 million, 8 billion
12 million, 6 billion
60 million, 4 billion
4 million, 4 billion
23 million, 4 billion
7 million, 20 billion
4.5 million, 71 million


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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PC & Mac
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