I’m mentioning it here, because of the “First CityWide Change Bank” one from years ago with Phil Hartman. This could actually help students learn about making change, or at least affirm their recent knowledge of it. Maybe a fun video to show near the end of the school year, who knows?

Here’s the video:

Here’s the home page for SNL.

Here’s a game for students just learning about how to make change from a very basic level. It’s a game from FunBrain called “ChangeMaker.”

Enjoy!

My reaction was, “This would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad and frustrating!” I suppose we as educators would have a unique perspective on things like this…

Before I change the subject: A follow-up to this story (before you all get ticked off at Verizon and call them to set their little math-ignorant brains straight) is that they did, finally, respond appropriately – they adjusted the caller’s bill, and they educated their call reps. This is a powerful lesson about how one individual, through using Web 2.0 tools, can really make a change! All those listening to the YouTube recording of his call were educated (if not merely entertained). A company changed it policy, etc. Kinda interesting…

I’ve been sort of on a crusade for many years to make sure that any student that goes through my classroom knows darn well the difference between 99¢, $0.99, and .99¢ I’ve been shocked with how many times I’ve seen prices marked .99¢ in stores, and on big signs. I’ve put pictures of errors in stores on my school website.
I even took the price (.99¢) off of something at the local Rite-Aid, and had my students all write letters to the manager, correcting the error. The guy felt really bad – kept asking me, “How old are these kids?”, like he was embarrassed… I didn’t do it again.
Buuuuuuut…… I might have the kids find an error and blog about it. I wonder how many students will take me up on that invitation.
One time, my dad (a high school math teacher) paid at Baskin-Robbins by putting a penny on the counter and saying “keep the change.” – a single-scoop was advertised as .99¢ (you know – almost a penny!) I don’t recall if he went through with it, and didn’t go back to pay what they MEANT to charge, or if he left it…