Parents vs Students Estimation Skills
October 17, 2022
During and after parent-teacher conferences, Mr. Tunink had his students and any parents who came in during conferences demonstrate their estimation skills. Each student or parent was asked to secretly estimate the heavier of two large cones without touching them. After making an initial guess of which was larger, both students and parents were given an everyday object, a cell phone. Mr. Tunink placed the cell phone on his scale showing its mass in grams. He then allowed each individual a chance to pick up the cell phone to feel the 285-gram phone. Finally, Mr. Tunink allowed each individual to pick up each cone, a shorter one and a taller one. As they picked up each cone, Mr. Tunink allowed them a chance to estimate its final mass compared to the phone they had just held. The goal of the competition was to show everyone how hard it is to estimate with a system, the metric system, that is not very common in the United States. The second goal was simply to win and be the better group of estimators. I have included the results and a picture of the balance(scale) and the two types of cones. As you can see, the students were better at guessing which was heavier by sight and at guessing the mass of the smaller cone. The adults were better at guessing the mass of the larger cone. All in all, this gave the adults a chance to see a small peek into some of the strange things happening in our high school science classroom. Please email if you have any additional questions at jtunink@southernschools.org.