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Jenius!

How does what we see affect what we feel?

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Jenius!

How does what we see affect what we feel?

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Thousands of years ago, Confucius introduced the concept of jen. According to him, a person of jen “brings the good things of others to completion and does not bring the bad things of others to completion.” In other words, jen represents our ability to make the world a better place…but also a worse one.

In this lesson students explore the concept of the jen ratio — the ratio of positive to negative observations in our daily lives — and use it to discuss how the what we see influences the way we experience the world.

REAL WORLD TAKEAWAYS

  • What we see – the ratio of positive to negative moments – affects our well-being.
  • We can improve our own “jen ratios” – the ratio of positive to negative moments – by engaging in positive activities and consuming positive media. By being observably kind, we can improve the jen ratio of others.
  • The older someone is, the more experiences they’ve had, the more positive moments it takes to affect their lifetime jen ratio.

MATH OBJECTIVES

  • Use ratio language to describe the relationship between two quantities.
  • Compare ratios.
  • Find equivalent ratios.
  • Identify ways to improve the jen ratio of oneself and others.

Great anytime, including at the beginning of a unit before students have any formal introduction to the topic.
Grade 6
Ratios & Unit Rates
Grade 6
Ratios & Unit Rates
Content Standards 6.RP.1 Understand the concept of a ratio and use ratio language to describe a ratio relationship between two quantities. For example, "The ratio of wings to beaks in the bird house at the zoo was 2:1, because for every 2 wings there was 1 beak." "For every vote candidate A received, candidate C received nearly three votes." 6.RP.2 Understand the concept of a unit rate a/b associated with a ratio a:b with b ≠ 0, and use rate language in the context of a ratio relationship. For example, "This recipe has a ratio of 3 cups of flour to 4 cups of sugar, so there is 3/4 cup of flour for each cup of sugar." "We paid $75 for 15 hamburgers, which is a rate of $5 per hamburger." 6.RP.3 Use ratio and rate reasoning to solve real-world and mathematical problems, e.g., by reasoning about tables of equivalent ratios, tape diagrams, double number line diagrams, or equations. (a) Make tables of equivalent ratios relating quantities with whole- number measurements, find missing values in the tables, and plot the pairs of values on the coordinate plane. Use tables to compare ratios. (b) Solve unit rate problems including those involving unit pricing and constant speed. For example, if it took 7 hours to mow 4 lawns, then at that rate, how many lawns could be mowed in 35 hours? At what rate were lawns being mowed? (c) Find a percent of a quantity as a rate per 100 (e.g., 30% of a quantity means 30/100 times the quantity); solve problems involving finding the whole, given a part and the percent. (d) Use ratio reasoning to convert measurement units; manipulate and transform units appropriately when multiplying or dividing quantities.
Mathematical Practices MP.3 Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. MP.4 Model with mathematics.

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