The Inauguration Problem
This was a relatively short assignment that took several class periods to complete with our group. I think the main purpose of this activity was to work on estimates and creating a formula to show how to get that number. Our main tool was a google map of the 2008 inauguration speech, which spanned a distance of 1.2 miles. However, the map was scaled down, there fore a box covering the front of the Capitol and the back of the Washington Monument would have a length of roughly 8 - 10 inches and a width of 2.5 inches. Knowing this helps to narrow down on figuring out the amount of people who were present that day. What our group started with was figuring the scale area of each of the "blubs" on the map. Once we were able to figure this out, we were actually able to predict that there is a range of 1 - 4 people in a 2 x 2 square foot block. Overall, I think that this was one of those problems where it looks quite complicated at first, yet once you start to figure out a pattern it was easy to work with. I think that the two Habits of a Mathematician that myself and my group really did a good job with is, Experiment through Conjectures and Generalize. I think that these were important yet easy to keep in mind, because I kept wanting to deepen the exploration of how this problem was presented and how we were able to get our initial equation. I also believe that being able to generalize some areas helps to provide a rough, pretty accurate equation of finding the amount of people.