15- Luke TRANSCRIPTION (Because of Mr. Terupt)

Transcript
It was November. Apparently that meant time for Mr. Terupt to get crazy with his math ideas again. I think he was on a mission to put us through his math gauntlet (dollar word). “We’re going to figure out the number of blades of grass in the soccer field,” he announced one day.

“What! You’re gonna make us count grass?” Peter yelled. “That’s nuts!”

“No way!” Nick was hollering (dollar word).

“How are we supposed to do that?” Tommy said.

I raised my hand.

“Yes, Luke.”

“You mean we’re going to estimate the total number, right?” I said.

“Yes and no,” Mr. Terupt said. “We’ll actually do some calculating to get a reasonable approximation.”

I was beginning to think that Peter might be right.

“Yes, it’s going to be difficult, but I know we can do it,” Mr. Terupt said. “Besides, if everything we did were easy, then you wouldn’t learn anything. We need to be challenged in order to learn.”

Mr. Terupt was right about it being a challenge. None of us had any idea how we were going to count blades of grass. But we did.

First we decided we wanted to count ten-centimeter-by-ten-centimeter squares, which was my suggestion after Mr. Terupt talked to us about sampling and how our government gets population numbers. Then we measured the squares on large pieces of cardboard and cut them out, so we were left with a piece of cardboard that had a ten-centimeter square missing in the middle. That was Mr. Terupt’s suggestion. Now it would be easy to toss our piece of cardboard around the field and collect random ten-centimeter samples. So far so good. Time to head outside.

We marched downstairs and out the front doors by the office. Then we stampeded down the sidewalk until the end of the building. The soccer field awaited us on the side of our school.

Present

 * Luke
 * Mr. Terupt
 * Peter
 * Nick
 * Tommy

Locations

 * Snow Hill School
 * Room 202

Related
Previous Chapter: 14- Danielle TRANSCRIPTION (Because of Mr. Terupt)

Next Chapter: 16- Peter TRANSCRIPTION (Because of Mr. Terupt)