I'm so excited to join up to math IS real life! A monthly REAL WORLD math blog link-up hosted by 4mulaFun, Fourth Grade Studio, Teaching to Inspire in 5th, AND MissMathDork,
This blog link is about how we use math in the real world in order to show our students that math is valuable outside the classroom.
My real world math experience happened at the ATT store today.
When the hubby and I bought smart phones 2 years ago, we bought the lowest data plan (we were being money conscious). It worked for us for a while with only an overage here and there. Lately, however we have been going over our data almost every month. Each time we go over it costs us $15 extra each. We decided to head down to the ATT store to explore our data options today. At the store, the ATT guy looked at our data usage for the past couple of months (I usually use more data, but some months the hubby uses more.). He gave us 3 options for upgrading our data, as our 200MB plan doesn't even exist anymore. Each option contains our minutes and texting.
Option 1: 3GB each $139 per month
Option 2: 4GB shared in a family plan $136 per month
Option 3: 6GB shared in a family plan for $142 per month
Now in order to weigh our options appropriately, I had to ask a question that may seem stupid to some, "How many MB are in a GB?"
The ATT guy was kind enough to explain that there are 1000 MB in 1 GB. Holy Cow! That's a lot of data! Even if we just got 1 GB each we would upping our data by 4 times!!!! After discussing our options we went with the 4 GB to share. Now I don't have to worry about whether or not watching that Youtube video is going to cost me $15. We added about $10 a month to our bill, which is cheaper than going over our data and only getting 200 MB more.
Even as we were sitting there discussing prices and GB vs. MB, all I could think about was, "Look at all this math we are using!!!!" I'm now trying to figure out a way to turn this into a problem for my students to research and determine the best price/deal on a budget.
How are you using math in your life?
Great post! I actually made my 15 year old help with this very same dilemma when we switched over a few months ago! I also made him figure out how much money we would save by eliminating HIS phone!!! :) Thanks for linking up!
ReplyDeleteAwesome! What is sad is this is the same conversation I had with hubby last summer. We were living at our ranch then and didn't have internet so therefore no wifi. Let me tell you, I was going over on my data plan EVERY month! You can't tell a city girl in the boonies without internet that she can't use her phone for anything, not even a level of the latest game because it uses data!
ReplyDeleteJennifer Smith-Sloane
4mulaFun
Rissa! What a great post! Thank you so very much for linking up with us! I cannot wait to read all about your new math ideas. I'm your newest follower :) Welcome to the world of blogging!
ReplyDelete