Oh, Danny Boy!

September 23^rd, 2008.

I am stuck for problems. I took a look at what outcomes I had left in my unit and the work the students had completed. Some of it satisfied me, others did not. I decided to do a little booklet centering around a real life problem, and coming up with questions about this situation. I think I wanted to do this for my own purposes so I could be satisfied that the outcomes were indeed achieved. Here is a copy of the questions.

Danny Williams

Danny Williams is the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador. He has been fighting for us Newfoundlanders to get what we deserve – lots of money! He was promised, by our Prime Minister, Mr. Steven Harper, that Newfoundland would receive ten billion dollars from revenues from the oil industry. Danny is still fighting to get this money. Danny wants Newfoundland to be the biggest and best province in Canada. To do this, he wants at least 10% more people here than any other province. Newfoundland is one of the smallest provinces in Canada as can been seen in the table.

Province	Population
British Columbia	4 254 123
Alberta	3 256 879
Saskatchewan	994 187
Manitoba	1 177 456
Ontario	12 541 278
Quebec	7 598 165
New Brunswick	752 356
Nova Scotia	937 657
Prince Edward Island	138 178
Newfoundland	516 350

2. Danny is not very good with numbers, even though he is a millionaire. Danny needs to know which of the 10 provinces has the greatest population so that he can figure out how many people he needs to move back to Newfoundland. Help Danny with this problem by arranging the 10 provinces in order from greatest to least.

Province	Population

3. Danny does not like using really complicated numbers like those listing the populations of the provinces. He likes using nice simple numbers that are easy to calculate. Think of a way you can help Danny by making these numbers a little easier to work with and read. Do it!

Province	Population

4. Danny wants the population of Newfoundland to be ten times greater than any other province in Canada. How many people does Danny want in Newfoundland? How many more people does Danny have to attract to Newfoundland to get this amount? Use pictures, numbers and words to explain to Danny how you figured this out. (remember he is not a number person).

5. Look at the total populations of the provinces of Canada. Which province has a population that is about 10 times greater than Newfoundland? How do you know? What is an easy way to find this answer?

6.Danny, in trying to attract more people to Newfoundland, decides to give money to people that moves here. He writes two different cheques – one with the amount of twenty thousandths and the other in the amount of twenty thousand. Which cheque would you rather have? Explain your choice?

7. Danny really values education. He decides that after her gets the 10 billion dollars from Mr. Harper he is going to give each school 2 ¾ million dollars to spend on technology. Mrs. Gould and Mr. Morgan are so excited about this and begins to make a list of items to purchase. Here is what the list looked like:

· 125 LAPTOP COMPUTERS $1899.99 each

· 23 SMART BOARDS $2505.99 each

· 35 DATA PROJECTORS $1999.77 each

· 98 NEW COMPUTER

PROGRAMS FOR EACH LAPTOP $199.00 each

Ms. House looks at this list and wonders if we are going to have enough money to buy these items. Ms. House is a worry wort and Ms. Gould assures her that we do indeed have enough money to buy all of these items and still have money left over. Is Ms. Gould right? Prove it!