The Cost of the Death Star
Objective: SWBAT use their understanding of exponents and scientific notation to model the cost of the death star
The Question
There has been quite a bit of buzz around the concept of building a death star (from the movie star wars) and it actually showed up on kickstarter: Kickstarter Death Star
I show this to the students and then show the response from the president (he was asked to fund the building of the death star):
Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016.pdf
Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 20162.pdf
Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 20163.pdf
I like to ask the class what their thoughts are. Is this impossible? Did they raise enough? Could we figure out how much it would cost to build the death star?
Read About it
I give them 15 minutes to read and annotate the article (I always ask the humanities teacher for advice on this. I want to use the same language an teaching moves when it come to reading): Death Star Article.docx
The article has comments, but that is for the discussion only. After they read the article, I talk them through those key annotations.
Here are some back up videos in case students are absent:
Debate and Extend
Here we read another article on the cost of the death star: How much would a Death Star really cost_.pdf and then debate the merits of both articles. How would students make their own estimate? Does either article do a good job in estimation? What would they change? Is this a hopeless problem?
