This lesson plan was presented at the Florida Council of Teachers of Mathematics Annual Conference at Daytona Beach, Florida in October, 1996. Logarithms are used to answer questions about the rate of growth of mold on bread . The objective is to teach the students the rules of logarithm functions and uses while examining the mold problem. This lesson was designed for a pre-calculus level course.
Logs do belong in the real world.
Explain to students that we are growing mold on bread and will use similar data to determine the growth. You might want to graph the results on a piece of posterboard. On the day of the class pass out the review sheet of actual rules for log functions. The statplot window will be displayed on your screen. Once in here you can then press enter two times.