Saturday, February 04, 2006

Chuckles while grading

I have to post this entry now, while I am grading, because one of my students answers on a lab question is too hilarious. The question is about the influence of water and latitude on the annual temperature range, and they have to match cities with pairs of summer and winter temperatures. (Karen should remember this one.) One of the cities listed is Seattle, and one student put this for part of the reason (he got the actual reasons right):

"Also, there are more Starbucks in Seattle than the rest of the world all over, so the coffee helps with the temperature as well..."

I actually laughed out loud when I read this one. I needed that laugh because sometimes grading these kids' labs gets a bit annoying for lack of a better word. Anyway, I enjoyed that and had to post it before I forgot.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

!!!!!!!!

I definitely lol-d at that one. Now you have to wonder if he did that for humor or if he was serious. I don't know if you remember the radar lab I did that showed fires from the Santa Ana winds and the resulting smoke. Well this one group of (usually intelligent) boys said "well, it's either smoke or ... water from the helicopters that are trying to put the fires out" - maybe they're just trying to be cute? It might be worth it to ask the kid if he was serious!

Or you could tell him that the frappucinos balance out all the hot drinks, leading to no effect on temperature. If you say that to the kid with a straight face, I'll pay you $5!

John said...

I'm thinking he did that for humor, because after that he went on by saying that coffee wouldn't help Seattle win the Super Bowl, or something like that.

I'd be tempted to tell the kid that frappucinos balance the hot drinks, but I don't think I could do that with a straight face.

METEO 3 gives us so many good stories, doesn't it? :)

Steve said...

Sounds like he wasn't entirely sure but thought he could ay least some score points with something sort of plausible.

Of course, I see stuff like this all the time, just without the valid discussion. Ah, middle schoolers...

John said...

I still think he was trying to be funny. So, in that respect it worked. However, I usually don't give extra points for original answers, so if he thought he'd get more for that, he was mistaken. :) But still, it was nice to smile while grading, rather than wonder what the hell people were thinking when they wrote some of their answers.