#225. What If a Person Never Quit Growing?

Science, level: Middle
Posted by Craig Hunter (huntcd@infinitytx.net).
West Texas Schools
West Texas Middle School, Stinnett, Texas
Materials Required: Tape measure
Activity Time: 40 minutes
Concepts Taught: It's good thing that people don't grow all of their lives!!

What if a Person Never Quit Growing??

Materials necessary: a means for measuring students heights.
A scale for measuring the students weight.(optional)

The main purpose of this activity is to get
the attention of twelve to fourteen year olds and cause their
brains to engage in a reasoning process. Also, maybe
they will figure out that it's a good thing that people
stop growing. If you're really lucky, the students
might even become interested in what causes a person
to stop growning!

Step 1.
Each student should either find his/her weight or make
up a weight (there are always a few who are embarrased
about their weight.)

Step 2. Each student should divide his/her weight by his/her
current age to find out the average weight gain per year.

Step 3. Now that each student knows his/her average
weight gain per year, he/she can multiply it times a
projected age. This really gets hiliarous. Imagine
a student who weighs 120 pounds at age 12. This would
mean that the student will gain 10 pounds per year. At
age 70 the student would weigh 700 pounds.

I ususally allow the students to project their weights
from ages 20 to 100.

PART 2 Projecting Height

Use the same procedure as above, only have the students
use their current height and divide it by their age and multiply the
average height gain times the ages (20 to 100). It's really
handy to have a measuring tape taped to the wall so that
the students can find their height. Also, they can use
either inches or centimeters or both.

QUESTIONS FOR THE ACTIVITIES

You can also throw in some questions like:"What adjustments would fast
food restraunts have to make if this were actually true?" There are
many situations that the students could write about. How about the
schools where the teachers are much older than the students? How about
at home, where the parents may be 20 feet tall while their children are
only three feet tall?? What about the clothing, eating utensils, beds,
comodes, chairs, doorways.................. you can really let your
imagination run away with this one.