This problem solving activity has a number focus.
Gill, is playing with her name and with numbers.
She lets all her consonants equal 3/8 and all her vowels equal –5/8.
So the value of Gill’s name is 3/8 – 5/8 + 3/8 + 3/8 = 4/8 = 1/2 = 0.5
What is the value of your name?
Change the rules so that the value of your name is negative.
This problem, in which students substitute values into their own names, focuses on the addition of positive and negative fractional numbers. To successfully work with this prolem, your students should have knolwedge of operating on negative integers and fractions.
It is a precursor to algebra which seeks to generalise number.
Other similar Number problems are: Points, Level 1; Names and Numbers, Level 2; Make 4.253, Level 3; Multiples of a, Level 3; and Doubling Up, Level 5.
Gill, is playing with her name and with numbers. She lets all her consonants equal 3/8 and all her vowels equal –5/8. So the value of Gill’s name is 3/8 – 5/8 + 3/8 + 3/8 = 4/8 = 1/2 = 0.5
What is the value of your name?
Change the rules so that the value of your name is negative.
Using Gill’s original substitution, what is the biggest and smallest value that you can find using names in your class?
Attribute different fractional values to vowels and to consonants.
The answers that you get for the first part of the question will depend upon the names of the students in the class.
To get a name with a negative value, students should choose arbitrary values for each of their letters. For example, if their name is Mark, then they might let M = 1/8, A = -7/8, R = 1/8 and K = 1/8. The choice of value for the last letter should ensure a negative value, if the first four letters don’t have too big a sum.
Printed from https://meaningfulmaths.nt.edu.au/mmws/nz/resource/go-negative at 8:57pm on the 26th February 2024