Activities:

1. On page 12 of Innumeracy, the author talks about how to represent the difference between one million and one billion - it takes eleven and a half days for a million seconds to tick away, whereas almost thirty-two years are required for a billion seconds to pass. See if you can figure out another tangible example representing the difference in magnitude between one million and one billion. (2 pts)

Value of estimation: WITHOUT using the internet OR calculator, see if you can estimate the following:

2. What is the number of people in Cincinnati? (1 pt)

3. What is the proportion of the people in the US who are left-handed? (1 pt)

4. What is the typical number of visitors to Disney Land each year? (1 pt)

5. What is the number of miles between your current location and downtown Chicago? (1 pt)

6. How tall is the tallest person in this class? (1 pt)

7. What is the mean of the following set of numbers: 1, 2, 2, 5, 5, 10, 20 (don't solve it... estimate it!) (2 pts)

8. If a standard deviation is the amount to which scores on average deviate from the mean, estimate the standard deviation of #6's data. It should be a single number, i.e., on average, scores deviate ____ units from the mean. (2 pts)

9. Using the example on page 22-23, if a student ID is 6 digits long, the range of numbers is 1-9, and repetitions are not allowed, how many possible student IDs can be generated? What if repetitions are allowed? (3 pts)