Please reflect upon the daily activities of a career you are interested in. As you reflect on those activities, look for examples that use one of our two recent units of study; Ratios or Order Of Operations. You may concentrate on only Ratios or Order Of Operations. Your goal is to create a story in which your "normal day" in your career field ended in a horribly sequence of events because of errors someone made mathematically (either with ratios or order of operations).
Simply stating something bad happened because someone messed up with math will not be accepted. The reader needs to witness the mistake happening and feel how the consequences of the errors made have on the characters in your scenario.
Reply to this post with your story (remember to use your nickname after your post). As you read posts from your peers, offer praise for things you like and constructive suggestions they may consider to improve their story. Your feedback should concentrate on the mathematical thinking and consequences of the errors, but you may briefly touch upon the writing style, tone, characters or scenario if you wish.
As a nurse, Ben had to administer medication to many of the patients on the floor. Most medications use a ratio of how many milligrams of medicine should be used for how many kilograms of weight the patient has. When Ben checks in a patient, he has to weigh the person and record the person's heart among other intake procedures. If Ben accidentally records the person's weight in pounds instead of kilograms, then the medicine ratios will be all off. Even if the weight is recorded correctly, the right amount of medicine needs to be measured out. Ben misread one of the amounts as 1.2mg instead of the dosage of .12 when adding an antibiotic into an IV bag. The patient's eyes few open as she started complaining about a burning sensation in her arm! Ben realized he must have messed up and immediately reduced the meds to 0 and reread the dosage. Catching his mistake, he apologized and had to go fill out paperwork after his busy shift. Every time there is a mistake on the floor there are tons of paperwork to fill out! As well as feeling bad about causing pain, Ben now had a very long day. (written by Snoopy)
ReplyDeleteSmall Engine blues: Sue is a new mechanic and is still learning the craft of small engine repair. She love ripping apart machines and putting them back together, but often does not read instructions well. After building a chain saw engine from parts hanging around the shop, she was eager to gas it up and test the mower out. On the fuel shelf there were many cans all with different numbers like 15:1, 8:1, 4:1. She figured these were dates or something, so she just grabbed a can and filled up her creation. Pulling the rip cord a few times she was so excited to hear the engine catch and fire up. That quickly turned into fear as billows of black smoke started flowing out of the engine. It was at this time that I came into the room and saw her hitting the kill switch as the room was engulfed in smoke. It did not take me long to identify the problem as I spotted the gas can next to her. The engine she was working on needed a 15:1 ratio of gas to oil and she was using a 4:1 ratio that means she had almost 4 times as much oil going into that engine as it needed and it was that oil burning that was making the smoke. After we aired out the place and flushed out that engine, she was very happy to see her motor working with the right gas in it. (Written by Captain Caveman)
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