TMAI: Dallas Stadium

As a die-hard football fan I can't wait for the start of the NFL season so that I can bring in something mathematical from a game for the kids to chew on. I've had some success with videos that show a team's negative yardage play to illustrate adding negatives, but this year I wanted something different and wasn't sure I would find it. Then, Sunday night rolls around and this one drops in my lap:

I ripped the video from my DVR using Pinnacle's hardware for Mac. Then I exported an image sequence using Quicktime Pro at a rate of 8 frames per second. I took the images that illustrated the dimensions of the stadium:

I reminded them that the whole point of "Tell Me About It" is to get them to deliver the numbers in context so that it makes people say "Wow! Now I get it!" This is especially true when the numbers are so large that they are outside of the realm of our ability to experience them.

For example, I start my first TMAI segment of the year asking the students if they are 1 trillion seconds old (I got this from a book somewhere but can't remember which one). Half say yes, and the other half say no. After some investigation, and simple math operations, they calculate that 1 trillion seconds is equal to around 33,000 years. Now they understand how difficult it is to conceptualize numbers that big.

What about 1,225 feet?

I insist from Day 1 that a successful TMAI session is all about the four basic operations of math, creativity, and Google. While I operate Google the students fire away questions.

"How big is the Statue of Liberty?"

"Good one! 309 feet including the pedestal."

"How tall is Beyonce?"

"Well, she's 5'8" according to Google, but have you seen that many Beyonce's?" (Again, we're going for a tangible comparison that other people can relate to.)

Overall the students did well, but this isn't our first outing and won't be our last. Some students still aren't comfortable thinking like this but we're working on it.