I’m saving one of the best for last before I head to bed since I think it’s one of the best things I’ve seen lately.. <\/p>\n
Special thanks goes out to Wisters for sending this in and scanning and transcribing the article and pictures:<\/p>\n
One of my students gave this Scholastic Math Mag to me today, volume 21,
\nNumber 8, January 22, 2001.<\/p>\nOn the cover is a picture of Max and Liz with the caption, Roswell’s Alien
\nArea. Inside is a two page spread. It was a spoof on Roswell called
\nReciprocals, followed with some junior high type math problems. There is a
\ngreat cartoon of Max, Liz, and Michael.<\/p>\nI have transcribed the spoof and scanned the cover and cartoon.<\/p>\n
Here is the article and pictures..<\/p>\n
Reciprocal<\/p>\n
When Whiz learned there were aliens in her high school, she flipped. Now, she’s flipping fractions.<\/p>\n
Characters:<\/p>\n
Smax: the teen aliens’ fearless leader<\/p>\n
Whiz: human waitress, and Smax’s girlfriend<\/p>\n
My-call: Smax’s opinionated alien friend<\/p>\n
Scene: The Crashdown diner<\/p>\n
Smax: Hey, Whiz—check out these new orbs we found in the desert! We think they may give us clues about our home planet.<\/p>\n
Whiz: Or they’ll make great paper weights.<\/p>\n
My-call: Smax! She’s not one of us. She doesn’t know what it is like to be an alien. And she has no buisness with these orbs!<\/p>\n
Smax: She is my girlfriend My-call. So that makes her, like, an honorary alien<\/p>\n
My-call: Does not!<\/p>\n
Smax: Does too!<\/p>\n
My-call: Doesn’t!<\/p>\n
Smax:Does!<\/p>\n
Smax and My-call start to wrestle<\/p>\n
Whiz: Guys! Settle down! I think I’ve discovered the secret of the orbs. Look, the fraction on Smax’s orb is the reciprocal of the fraction on My-call’s.<\/p>\n
My-call: Uh what is a reciprocal? We don’t have those on our planet.<\/p>\n
Smax: You just didn’t pay attention in math class!<\/p>\n
They begin to fight again, Whiz separates them.<\/p>\n
Whiz: To find the reciprocal of a fraction, flip the numerator and the denominator. If the answer is an improper fraction, divide the numerator by the denominator. Reduce the answer’s fraction to lowest terms. For example..(omitted here)<\/p>\n
To find the reciprocal of a mixed number, convert the mixed number into an improper fraction. Then flip the numerator and the denominator. For example (omitted here)<\/p>\n
My-call: Not bad. For a lowly human, that is.<\/p>\n
Smax: You’re out of this world Whiz!<\/p>\n
Whiz: Actually you are.<\/strong><\/p>\n
This is followed by some practice problems with these instructions.
\nHelp Smax, Whiz, and My-call use reciprocals to unlock the secrets of the orbs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I’m saving one of the best for last before I head to bed since I think it’s one of the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[799,800],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-roswell","tag-fun","tag-scholastic-math-magazine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1511"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}