Life in Coordinate Planes
Six coordinate planes sorting everyday things into quadrants: sports (fun to play vs. watch), books, pets, theorems (beautiful vs. useful), things to give, and songs.
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Free for classrooms, worksheets, slides and other non-commercial use under CC BY-NC 4.0, with credit to Ben Orlin.
Cartoon by Ben Orlin, Math with Bad Drawings. https://cartoons.mathwithbaddrawings.com/2017-06-14-life-in-coordinate-planes/ (CC BY-NC 4.0)Transcript
[1] Sports: fun to play vs. fun to watch. Fun both ways: basketball, dodgeball, tennis. Fun to play, not to watch: Quidditch(?), mini golf, baseball, bowling. Fun to watch, not to play: ice hockey, football. Neither: darts, golf, marathon.
[2] Reading: want to read vs. want to have read. Both: J.K. Rowling's post-Harry Potter novels, epic Russian novels. Want to read only: my own obituary, other people's emails, YA dystopias. Want to have read only: science textbooks, beautifully written studies of depressing characters, Ulysses, user agreements. Neither: Twitter, my reviews on RateMyTeacher.com.
[3] Pets: cute vs. manageable. Cute and manageable: turtle, gecko, cat, dog. Manageable, not cute: rock, fish, guinea pig, snake, rat. Cute, unmanageable: dolphin, monkey, child. Neither: "[why would you have this pet?]"
[4] Theorems: beautiful vs. useful. Beautiful and useful: Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, Fundamental Theorem of Algebra, Pythagorean Theorem. Beautiful, useless: Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, divergence of the harmonic series, Fermat's Last Theorem, irrationality of √2. Useful, not beautiful: Central Limit Theorem, Triangle Inequality. Neither: Four-Color Theorem.
[5] Things to give: fun to give vs. fun to receive. Both: high fives, love, "A" grades, forgiveness. Fun to receive only: money, praise, credit. Fun to give only: noogies, advice. Neither: birth, "F" grades.
[6] Songs: easy to sing vs. nice to hear. Both: Hey Jude, America the Beautiful, the "Arthur" theme song. Easy, not nice: Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, Itsy Bitsy Spider. Nice, hard: "Hello" by Adele, Hallelujah, Star Wars theme, B.O.B. by OutKast. Neither: Star-Spangled Banner.