Letter to the Editor
Write a 4-5 paragraph (3-5 sentences per paragraph) letter to the editor that discusses the following topic: Is there true freedom of speech and of the press in the United States, and to what extent should there be true freedom of speech and of the press? Use the following example: Should a blogger be allowed to write absolutely everything that they want on their blog, or should there be any limitations on what they are allowed to say?
Use lots of evidence and examples to make your point. Actual people and examples are preferred.
45 minutes.
Choose your own tutorial: Assignment for TPOLs
Choose a skill or project that we have discussed this year in Math/Science and explain that skill or concept to the world through a post on your DP. The key word here is action: write a tutorial that guides your DP reader through the process of using your skill or concept.
- Get permission from the instructor about the subject matter of your tutorial.
- Give your tutorial a title such as “Tutorial: How to Invest in the Stock Market” or “Making Predictions Using Regressions: A Tutorial”.
- Your tutorial must include at least 3 image artifacts, (the more the better).
- Your tutorial should have at least 500 words (750 is better).
- The tutorial should lead the reader through actually doing something or making something, for instance, you could teach the reader how to invest in the stock market or to make a prediction about the future using a regression.
- Think of this assignment through the following lens: What have have you learned and how did you you learn about it?
World Oil Prices Part 2 – Improved Forecast
Now we are going to possibly improve our forecast for next May’s world crude oil price. The way we are going to do this is by limiting our regression to just the last year of oil price data, 2007 – 2008, from the U.S. Energy Information Agency.
Benchmark 1: Either use your World Oil Prices data from the last assignment or download the following file here: world_oil_98_08.xls . Make a new sheet in the spreadsheet and call it “07-08″.
Benchmark 2: Copy and paste the last year of the oil price data into the “07-08″ sheet. In column C, assign a number that represents the day . Let 5/11/2007 be day 1, 5/18/2007 is day 8, and so on. Stretch this “day number” out one year from 5/8/2008 to 5/8/2009. This is how we can forecast the oil price on May 8, 2009.
Benchmark 3: Here are the regression equations that we are going to use for our possibly improved forecast. Try these out: Linear fit: y = 0.122x + 60.32; 2nd order polynomial fit: y = 6.3715e-07*x^3 – 2.0468e-04*x^2 + .11884*x + 62.211
Apply these equations to your data and make three more forecasts for the price of oil on May 8, 2009.
Benchmark 4: Make a plot that has the oil price in dollars per barrel on the vertical axis, and the date on the horizontal axis. Include everything from May 8, 2007 to May 8, 2009. Put the 2007-2008 oil price data on this chart, as well as the linear, power, and 3rd order regression curves. So you should have one squiggly line (the real data) and three smooth curves that go out past May 2008 into the future. Label your regression curves with their type (e.g., linear, power, etc.).
Benchmark 5: Publish your revised forecast with a graphic and a personal analysis on your DP. What do you think? How realistic is it to forecast oil prices using regression techniques?
Have fun!
Sell T-shirts for Free
If you sold a t-shirt on your own web store (like the future website www.nitroideas.com) for $20, then automatically forwarded the order to www.spreadshirt.com, who charged you $13.50 for the shirt and would print and ship it for you automatically, without a t-shirt ever passing through your hands, you could make $6.50 a shirt for your own original contribution to the world.
Sounds pretty good to me:)
Forum
adapted from Raphael’s School of Athens
A Great Book on Transportation Infrastructure Planning
“Carfree Cities” by J.H. Crawford, International Books – Utrecht, Netherlands
Homework for Polly in the Pocket 28 February 2008
Finish your satellite mini projects and put them in my inbox at the beginning of class on Friday, 29 February, 2008 for 14 points credit. No late work except by special arrangement.
Video: Electric Car Class
Click on this picture of Condoleeza Rice in a Tesla electric car to check out this high school in Florida where lower- and middle-income students are building high-performance electric cars:
Image Source: NASA
Your High Tech High email and my HTH email address
To access your own High Tech High student email, go to the following web address:
www.nc.hightechhigh.org/webmail
Enter your normal HTHNC computer account user name and password.
Also, my personal email address is mmiller@hightechhigh.org
Yours, Mr. Miller
