Subj: Mike's room volume act.
From: Bob

In yesterday's opening session, I used a variation of Mike's 'find the volume of this room' activity. After the usual opening business we had about 25 minutes. The class counted off to make groups of 2 or 3 and were given the task: Find the volume of the room, imagining that all furnishings are gone (as happened a summer ago) - discuss how, do it, do it, give an estimate of the accuracy of your result. Rulers, meter sticks were available.

It went very well. Much involvement. Some interesting outcomes: 10,344.9673 cu ft ... "whence all those decimal places" asked I; "that's what the calculator said" quoth he.... some discussion of precision; 18,343,675 cm^3 ..."maybe you could use a more practical unit..."