Here’s my situation. The surface mission was supposed to be thirty-one days. For redundancy, the supply probes had enough food to last the whole crew fifty-six days. That way if one or two probes had problems, we’d still have enough food to complete the mission.
We were six days in when all hell broke loose, so that leaves enough food to feed six people for fifty days. I’m just one guy, so it’ll last me three hundred days. And that’s if I don’t ration it. So I’ve got a fair bit of time. (Weir 8)
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In Andy Weir’s novel The Martian, Mark Watney finds himself stranded on Mars. He is then faced with a series of math and science problems that he must solve in order to survive and get back to Earth. The book leads the reader through Mark’s thought process to show just how much knowledge and strategic thinking goes into each of his decisions. It is an extended math problem wrapped in an enthralling story.

In this project, you are going to write your own short story riddled with mathematical problems to solve. For your protagonist, you may use Mark Watney or another literary character. Your story must include an overarching dilemmaor goal that his or her problem solving skills will overcome at the conclusion.

You may work alone or with a partner for this project. The requirements for each differ slightly in the length of the story that is expected. If you work alone, you must include at least 7 problems to solve; if you work collaboratively, you must include at least 10 problems to solve.In both cases, the problems must include one of each of the following 6 types:

  1. Comparing two differing units by unit conversions
  2. A system of linear equations
  3. Comparing two or more linear situations
  4. Comparing two or more quadratic situations
  5. Comparing two or more exponential situations
  6. Comparing two or more situations of unlike function types (linear, quadratic, or exponential)

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Example: if I were writing another adventure for Mark Watney on his quest to leave Mars, I might write the following problem to fulfill my comparing units question.

Mark looks around the Hab to find a water storage option. He notices a cylindrical container and a rectangular container that both look sufficient, but he’s not sure which will hold more water. If the cylindrical container holds 475,000 mL of liquid and the rectangular container holds 5500 cups of liquid, which one holds more and by how many gallons?

I could also add a follow up question using the answer from above like…

If Mark consumes 2.3 gallons of water every day, how many days will the rover’s water supply last?

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Once you have written your story with questions, you must make an answer key. The answer key should show the steps to solve the problem and indicate the final answer.

You can make the answer key by hand or digitally on another copy of your original. If done digitally, the answers should be worked out in steps below the problem in a font color different than the font of the original story.

Grading Rubric

Requirement / Fulfilled / Partially Fulfilled / Lacking or Missing / Points Earned
The story has the correct number of mathematical questions / 5 points
The story has 7 questions for a solo work and 10 for a collaborative work / 3-4 points
The story has at least 5 questions but not the correct number / 0-2 points
The story has less than 5 questions / /5
The story has all of the required question elements / 12 points
The story has one of each of the 6 required types of questions / 6-11 points
The story has at least 3 of the required 6 types of questions / 0-5 points
The story has less than 3 of the required types of questions / /12
The questions in the story are mathematically relevant to the Algebra I course / 9-10 points
The questions are based on material covered in the Algebra I curriculum / 6-8 points
A couple of questions are lower than the scope of Algebra I content / 0-5 points
The questions are not mathematical or are mathematical but do not demonstrate understanding of Algebra I content / /10
The answer key for the story is fully worked out and mathematically correct / 16-20 points
The answer key shows in detail how to solve each problem and the correct solution with only a minor error or two. / 11-15 points
The answer key doesn’t show the steps to obtain the answer or has more than a couple errors in calculation or concept. / 0-10 points
The answer key is missing, incomplete, or severely flawed in the math it shows. / /20
The story shows a substantial effort and creativity on the part of the author(s) / 9-10 points
The story introduces an interesting problem or goal for the main character to solve. / 6-8 points
The story progresses by solving problems but doesn’t have an overall theme. / 0-5 points
The questions in the story seem unrelated to one another. / /10
The story is grammatically correct. / 3 points
The story has no errors or a couple of minor grammar errors that are not distracting. / 1-2 points
The story has numerous spelling and grammar errors that distract from the story. / 0 points
The story has numerous spelling and grammar errors that make the story hard to interpret. / /3
FINAL GRADE / /60