As part of their “Get Your Billion Back, America” national advertising campaign, H&R Block sponsored the "How Big is a Billion?" contest, in which teachers were asked to turn the idea of $1 billion into a math assignment by submitting real-life examples to illustrate the concept. Prizes included classroom grants of $3,000, $2,000 and $1,000 across three grade tiers: grades 4th-6th , 7th-9th and 10th-12th. To refresh your memory about the contest, you may read my previous post
here.
The contest received many creative and fun entries and the winners have been announced on the
H&R Block Dollars & Sense Facebook page. Due to a tie at the High School level, H&R Block ended up awarding 10 grants! Let's find out who won--
Emily McDonnell’s class earned the $3,000 first prize for grades 4-6 by equating one billion to a whopping 15,432 years worth of lunch trays at Bonner Springs Elementary School in Kansas.
The winning entry for grades 7-9 was submitted by the students of Billie Watson’s class at Annoor Academy in Knoxville, Tennessee, who concluded that $1 billion equals an hourly salary of $114,115.25 – for every hour of every day for an entire year.
Sports and history buffs will appreciate the winning entry for grades 10-12, as Amanda Bowles’ students at East Coweta High School in Sharpsburg, Georgia, determined that a billion pitches would be thrown over the course of 1,906 Major League Baseball seasons – or, enough to take our national pastime back to the Roman Empire of the second century.
Posts
