Tooth Fairy Math

During the school year, I work with ESL students in grades pre-K-2, and grades 6-8. I also do outside tutoring. This summer, I am tutoring one of my former students. I am always looking for ways to keep his interest. He enjoys stories about his culture, and his holidays. He does not like math. He is most interested in his own country — India — so I looked for stories about it. This lead into comparing his own country with other countries. I wanted to show him that some other countries might have the same tale to go with the idea of a "tooth fairy". We found a great book that describes tooth tradition all around the world.

Conclusion

Mixing Math and Mountains

Problem
While hiking, I wondered... hmmm... How many steps would it take to climb up Mt. Doug and back down? What's the distance from the foot to the summit of Mt. Doug? What's my step length? Let me find out! Ready, set, go!
Hypothesis

I think it would take 4,000 steps because by car, the odometer says 1.6 km. I measure my step length to be 0.4 m. I find: (Number of steps) = (Distance) / (Step length). I also have a hunch it'll take more steps coming down the mountain than up.

Procedure
So how do I start? 1 step at a time! I get my good runners, I clip on a pedometer, I grab a notebook and here I go! I climb Mt. Doug 3 times. Each time, I count the number of steps on my pedometer. I ask my parents to help me use a GPS unit. At the gate, half way and the summit, I record the time and distance taken that's on the GPS.

Results
I made a table and figured out these neat results:

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