Five warm-ups for grades 9–12. Each takes three to five minutes. Answers and teacher notes are in the collapsed box under each prompt.
ELA
A logical fallacy is a flaw in reasoning that can make a weak argument sound convincing. Match each argument to one fallacy: bandwagon, slippery slope, ad hominem, false dilemma, or post hoc (assuming that because B came after A, A caused B). Then rewrite one argument so it makes a fair point.
- “Everyone at the gym buys this protein bar, so it must be the best one.”
- “Don’t trust Jordan’s movie review. He failed his driving test twice.”
- “Either you join the travel team or you don’t really care about soccer.”
- “I wore my lucky socks and we won, so the socks helped us win.”
- “If we let people bring snacks into the library, soon they’ll bring full meals, and before long the books will be ruined.”
Answer and teacher notes
1. Bandwagon (popularity is not proof of quality). 2. Ad hominem (attacks the person, not the review; driving has nothing to do with judging movies). 3. False dilemma (there are many ways to care about soccer). 4. Post hoc (the win came after the socks, but that doesn’t mean the socks caused it). 5. Slippery slope (assumes a chain of bad outcomes without evidence for each step).
Sample rewrite of 5: “Snacks in the library could lead to crumbs and spills on books, so if snacks are allowed, there should be clear rules about where people can eat.” The fair version names a specific, likely problem and a response to it. Discussion: fallacies are common in ads and online comments. Have students find one in a commercial or product page and name it. Point out that an argument with a fallacy can still have a true conclusion; the fallacy just means the reasoning given doesn’t support it.
Math
On October 23, 2001, Apple announced the first iPod, which promised “1,000 songs in your pocket.” It had a 5 GB hard drive, cost $399, and played MP3 files at bit rates up to 320 kbps (kilobits per second). Use 1 GB = 1,000 MB, 1 MB = 1,000,000 bytes, and 1 byte = 8 bits. (a) If 1,000 songs filled the drive, what is the average size of one song in MB? (b) A 4-minute song is encoded at 128 kbps. How big is the file in MB? Does the 1,000-song claim hold up? (c) How many 4-minute songs fit if they are all encoded at 320 kbps? (d) Apple said 1,000 songs could be transferred in under 10 minutes. What average transfer speed, in MB per second, does that require if the songs fill the drive?
Answer and teacher notes
(a) 5 GB = 5,000 MB. 5,000 ÷ 1,000 = 5 MB per song.
(b) 4 minutes = 240 seconds. 128,000 bits/s × 240 s = 30,720,000 bits. ÷ 8 = 3,840,000 bytes = 3.84 MB. Since 3.84 MB is less than 5 MB, yes: 1,000 such songs take 3,840 MB, which fits on a 5,000 MB drive.
(c) 320,000 × 240 ÷ 8 = 9,600,000 bytes = 9.6 MB per song. 5,000 ÷ 9.6 ≈ 520.8, so 520 songs (you can’t store part of a song). Higher quality means about half as many songs.
(d) 10 minutes = 600 seconds. 5,000 MB ÷ 600 s ≈ 8.3 MB per second or faster.
The 4-minute length and 128 kbps setting are assumptions for the problem; real songs vary in length, and real drives hold slightly less than their labels because of formatting. Extension: what was the price per gigabyte? ($399 ÷ 5 = $79.80 per GB.) Have students compare that to the storage on a phone today. Today is the iPod’s 25th anniversary (2026 − 2001).
Source: Apple Newsroom: Apple Presents iPod (October 23, 2001)
Science
Today is Mole Day, celebrated from 6:02 a.m. to 6:02 p.m. on October 23 (10/23) in honor of Avogadro’s number, about 6.022 × 1023, the number of particles in one mole. (a) Water has a molar mass of 18.02 g/mol. A tablespoon holds about 15 g of water. How many water molecules is that? (b) Suppose 8 billion people each counted one molecule per second, nonstop. How many years would it take to count one mole? (Use 1 year ≈ 3.156 × 107 s.) (c) Why do chemists need a counting unit this enormous?
Answer and teacher notes
(a) 15 ÷ 18.02 ≈ 0.832 mol. 0.832 × 6.022 × 1023 ≈ 5.0 × 1023 molecules, roughly half a trillion trillion.
(b) 6.022 × 1023 ÷ (8 × 109 per second) ≈ 7.53 × 1013 seconds. 7.53 × 1013 ÷ 3.156 × 107 ≈ 2.4 × 106 years, about 2.4 million years, even with everyone on Earth helping.
(c) Atoms and molecules are so tiny that any amount you can see or weigh contains an astronomical number of them. The mole links the particle scale to the gram scale: one mole of a substance has a mass in grams equal to its molar mass, so chemists can “count” particles by weighing. Since 2019, the Avogadro constant has been defined as exactly 6.02214076 × 1023 per mole. The 8 billion people figure is a round number for the problem. Mole Day was started by high school chemistry teacher Maurice Oehler; the National Mole Day Foundation was founded in 1991.
Sources: IUPAC Gold Book: Avogadro constant; University of Wisconsin–Madison Chemistry: Mole Day created by Badger chemist
Social Studies
England and Scotland shared a monarch starting in 1603 but kept separate parliaments for another century. On January 16, 1707, the Scottish Parliament approved the Treaty of Union by a vote of 110 to 67. The Act of Union took effect on May 1, 1707, creating the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the first Parliament of Great Britain met in London on October 23, 1707. Its House of Commons had 558 members: 513 from England and Wales and 45 from Scotland. (a) What percent of the Commons came from Scotland? (b) What percent of Scottish members who voted supported the treaty? (c) What additional information would you need to judge whether 45 seats was a fair share for Scotland? Explain.
Answer and teacher notes
(a) 45 ÷ 558 ≈ 0.081, or about 8%. (b) 110 + 67 = 177 voting. 110 ÷ 177 ≈ 62%. (Another 46 members were absent or abstained, which students may want to factor in.)
(c) Answers will vary; grade the reasoning. Strong answers ask for each country’s population in 1707, and possibly its wealth or tax contribution, since seats can be divided in different ways. Students might also want to know how members were chosen and who was allowed to vote at the time. Push the idea that “fair” depends on the measure you pick. Under the treaty, Scotland also received 16 seats for its peers in the House of Lords. Quick math: today is 2026 − 1707 = 319 years since that first meeting, and the two crowns had been shared for 1707 − 1603 = 104 years before the parliaments joined. Extension: why might two countries that already share a monarch still decide to merge their governments?
Sources: Scottish Archives for Schools: Union 1707 Timeline; UK Parliament: The Articles of Union; Wikipedia: First Parliament of Great Britain (seat totals)
Current Events
A study in the British Ecological Society journal People and Nature, highlighted by ScienceDaily this week, tested how close people could walk toward birds in city parks in five European countries (Czechia, France, Germany, Poland, and Spain) before the birds flew off. This is called the flight initiation distance. Male and female volunteers, matched for height and clothing, approached birds of 37 species in 2,701 trials. On average, men got about one meter closer than women before the birds fled, and the pattern held in all five countries. The researchers say they don’t know why. (a) Why did the team match the walkers for height and clothing? (b) The researchers suggest smell, body shape, or the way people walk might explain the result. Design a simple experiment to test one of these. (c) The authors call the findings preliminary. What would make you more confident in them?
Answer and teacher notes
(a) Height and clothing could also affect how threatening a person looks. Matching them makes them controlled variables, so a difference in flight distance is more likely tied to whether the walker is a man or a woman, not to size or outfit.
(b) Answers will vary; reward designs that change one variable at a time. Example for gait: have the same walkers approach once with their normal walk and once on a slow, steady treadmill-style pace or with a set stride length, keeping everything else the same. Example for body shape: use identical loose coveralls on all walkers. Example for smell: approach from downwind versus upwind. (c) Repeating the study in other places (other continents, rural areas), with more walkers, with observers who don’t know the study’s goal, and finding the same pattern again. Researcher Daniel Blumstein of UCLA said he believes the results “but I can’t explain them right now.” Discussion: is it useful to publish a result that no one can explain yet? Why or why not?
Source: ScienceDaily: Birds Are More Afraid of Women Than Men. Scientists Have No Idea Why (British Ecological Society; People and Nature)
Keep going
More bell ringers: Bell ringers for high school · Math bell ringers · Science bell ringers · Social studies bell ringers · Grammar bell ringers · 100 bell ringer questions
End of class: Exit tickets for high school · Math exit tickets · ELA exit tickets · Science exit tickets · Social studies exit tickets · Printable exit slips
Tools: Printable bell ringer sheet · Free AI bell ringer creator