kev
14th December 2007, 10:35 AM
Ok, my mouth wrote a check my math skills can't cash, and I am looking for some help.
Background:
In my HS Biology class, we were discussing the idea of genetic variation and its impact on the ultimate diversity of individuals within a species as well as its impact on the overall diversity of life. The next units we will be covering are on evolution, and the one major point I wanted to illustrate with my students is the power of time, coupled with tiny genetic variations, in the overall process of life.
In my experience, the number one problem students (and others) seem to have with comprehending evolution is the idea of tiny change over long periods of time. Too often, students think of genetic mutation as if it is the "X-Men" movie - a small genetic mutation = a super power. Or, some simple life form suddenly gives birth to a vastly different offspring, which is now better suited to its environment.
In my attempt to illustrate the power of time on relatively insignificant amounts of change I used a standard example of investing $. $2000 invested in the stock market, returning an average of 10% per year, over the course of 65 years can turn into more than a million dollars. I use this example because kids like money, and it shows how something relatively small can turn into something big in what SEEMS like a long time (to us.)
I then pointed out how insignificant 60-70 years really is. I posed the question: What if, instead of 70 years, we looked at the change over a million years. If your money doubled every 7 years, how much would you have in a million years?
I know this is not an exact correlation of how genetic variation/evolution works. Rather, my goal was simply to illustrate how something rather insignificant can turn into something incomprehensible when the element of LARGE amounts of time are introduced.
So - What I am looking for:
I don't really care if I even get the exact answer to the problem. But, I am curious if anyone out there could provide the answer in scientific notation or, better yet, come up with how many numbers would be in the answer. $2000, doubling in value every 7 years, for 1 million years.
I jokingly told the kids that if anyone gave me the answer, written out, I would give them 1 extra credit point, for every 7 digits, on their semester test. Well, quite a few of them have spent the last 24 hours trying to come up with the answer. I don't think that any of them can actually get the real number, but many are trying to use scientific notation, or come up with how many numbers are in the answer. I would like to reward them for their efforts for these attempts.
Thanks for any help that might be out there.
Background:
In my HS Biology class, we were discussing the idea of genetic variation and its impact on the ultimate diversity of individuals within a species as well as its impact on the overall diversity of life. The next units we will be covering are on evolution, and the one major point I wanted to illustrate with my students is the power of time, coupled with tiny genetic variations, in the overall process of life.
In my experience, the number one problem students (and others) seem to have with comprehending evolution is the idea of tiny change over long periods of time. Too often, students think of genetic mutation as if it is the "X-Men" movie - a small genetic mutation = a super power. Or, some simple life form suddenly gives birth to a vastly different offspring, which is now better suited to its environment.
In my attempt to illustrate the power of time on relatively insignificant amounts of change I used a standard example of investing $. $2000 invested in the stock market, returning an average of 10% per year, over the course of 65 years can turn into more than a million dollars. I use this example because kids like money, and it shows how something relatively small can turn into something big in what SEEMS like a long time (to us.)
I then pointed out how insignificant 60-70 years really is. I posed the question: What if, instead of 70 years, we looked at the change over a million years. If your money doubled every 7 years, how much would you have in a million years?
I know this is not an exact correlation of how genetic variation/evolution works. Rather, my goal was simply to illustrate how something rather insignificant can turn into something incomprehensible when the element of LARGE amounts of time are introduced.
So - What I am looking for:
I don't really care if I even get the exact answer to the problem. But, I am curious if anyone out there could provide the answer in scientific notation or, better yet, come up with how many numbers would be in the answer. $2000, doubling in value every 7 years, for 1 million years.
I jokingly told the kids that if anyone gave me the answer, written out, I would give them 1 extra credit point, for every 7 digits, on their semester test. Well, quite a few of them have spent the last 24 hours trying to come up with the answer. I don't think that any of them can actually get the real number, but many are trying to use scientific notation, or come up with how many numbers are in the answer. I would like to reward them for their efforts for these attempts.
Thanks for any help that might be out there.