Living Physics Portal: Estimation problems

Abstract: Estimation is a skill that is highly valued by physicists but too often not taught in class. It's a skill particularly valuable for biology students in that it can help them develop their quantitative intuition and their sense of biological scales. This set of problems are appropriate for inclusion in homework assignments. Sample solutions are provided.

Resource Types: Homework, Restricted access, Instructor supplement

Commercially available in:

ExpertTA

Authors:

Edward Redish (he/him)

University of Maryland, College Park

NEXUS Physics

Living Physics Portal Team

TOPICS

Physics Topics:

Classical Mechanics

Electricity & Magnetism

Fluid Mechanics

Optics

Oscillations & Waves

Thermo & Stat Mech

Life Sciences Topics:

Biomechanics

Human and Animal Physiology

Chemistry Topics:

Chemical Energetics > Energy

Gases > Ideal Gas Law

Intermolecular Forces > Hydrogen Bonding

Macromolecules > Proteins

Math Topics:

Algebra; Exponentials and Logarithms; Geometry

FILES Download0

Estimation problems - Medicine and physiology

A homeopathic drug.url

A pain in the ears.url

Blood and breath.url

Cellular and molecular scales.url

Dosing the liver.url

Edema.url

Errors in blood pressure measurement.url

Going around in circles.url

Growing new skin.url

Microvilli.url

Number of cells in a body.url

Population growth 1.url

Retinal display.url

Scaling up.url

Speech and the speed of sound.url

Tumor growth.url

A homeopathic drug.pdf

A pain in the ears.pdf

Blood and breath.pdf

Cellular and molecular scales.pdf

Dosing the liver.pdf

Edema.pdf

Errors in blood pressure measurement.pdf

Going around in circles.pdf

Growing new skin.pdf

Microvilli.pdf

Number of cells in a body.pdf

Population growth-1.pdf

Retinal display.pdf

Scaling up.pdf

Speech and the speed of sound.pdf

Tumor growth.pdf

A homeopathic drug.url

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INSTRUCTOR GUIDE

IMPLEMENTATION

Equipment required: No equipment needed

Basic implementation tips & tricks: Sample solutions are given for these problems, but they should not be applied rigidly. For many estimation problems there can be many equally valid approaches that are dramatically different. Especially on homework problems students should be given feedback on the quality of their thinking -- especially for how well they tie numbers they have created to information they might plausibly know. They need to be encouraged to learn to to one significant figure arithmetic and not to rely on their calculators. Using calculators tends to suppress students' evaluation of the numbers the get and their development of a good number sense.

How does this resource fit into the flow of your course? We assign an estimation problem on every one of our weekly homework assignments, and every exam has an estimation problem. As they get more experience with it, we integrate estimation into more complex examples.

PEDAGOGY

Pedagogical approach: Collaborative problem-solving; Context-rich problems; Modeling Instruction; Mathematically-focused activities

Skills / Competencies: Estimation; Intuition building

What insights or realizations do you hope students gain from this resource? We want students to realize that their everyday knowledge is powerful in helping them get a good quantitative idea of scales. We want them to understand that they often have personal knowledge that can tell them much more than they think they know if they learn how to use their knowledge quantitatively. It is particularly important for biology and health-care students to learn that effects that act in opposite directions do not necessarily cancel - if one is much greater than the other.

Why is this resource useful to life sciences students? Much of introductory biology is qualitative. Often images of organs, cells, and biological structures are shown without a scale. Understanding how structures at different scales contribute to process and mechanism is critical in biology.

DISCUSSION

SUBMISSION DETAILS

License: CC: BY-NC-SA - Attribution, No Commercial uses and Share Alike. Derivative works must have the same license

Last Edit Date: January 21, 2025