Math Adventure
Once there lived a boy whose name was Mowgli. Mowgli lived in the jungle. Mowgli was a very good boy who always obeyed his parents, who were wolves, by the way. Mowgli was being raised by wolves because his real parents had been killed in the jungle by tigers. Anyways, the wolves had taken him in as one of their own. As any good parent would want, Mowgli had to be educated. Mowlgi went to school with all the other wolves but for some reason Mowlgi had trouble in math. He said it was because the others made fun of him because he had small ears and only had fur on the top of his head, but his parents thought there was more to it. Mowgli was doing fine in all his other subjects except for math. Mom and pop wolf decided to get Mowgli a math tutor. They hired a big bear named Baloo. A time was set up for each week when Mowgli could go and see Baloo for help in math.
On the day of the first meeting Mowgli arrived at Baloo’s tree and climbed up the ladder. The two exchanged hellos an cracked open the books, but Mowgli was having a hard time concentrating. Baloo noticed this and asked what was wrong. Mowgli said "I just don’t think I need math. I mean, you never use it in everyday life."
"Tisk, tisk," Baloo said. "You have much to learn, young Mowgli. All you have to do is look at the bear necessities to see that math is used in everyday."
"Oh really?" exclaimed Mowgli.
"Certainly, my young friend," replied Baloo. "Follow me and I’ll show you the wonderful uses of our friend, Mathematics!"
As the two stepped out of the door and onto the deck, Baloo noticed a monkey by the name of King Louis swinging on a vine. "Look, Mowgli. King Louis is swinging on that vine. Can you see any of the ways he’s using math right now?"
"No," replied Mowgli.
"Well," Baloo started, "Whenever King Louis swings on a vine he has to make sure that the vine won’t be too long. If it was then he would smack the ground. King Louis just subtracts the length of the vine from however high up he is from the ground. If the length of the vine is greater, the he hits the ground, but if it’s shorter, then King Louis can swing as long as he wants."
"Wow," said Mowgli, astounded.
"Follow me, Mowgli, there’s much to see."
As Baloo led Mowgli into the jungle, they came across the snake Kaa. Kaa was trying to solve a problem. He had 12 apples. There were three other snakes there who all wanted some. Kaa asked Baloo, the Math Expert, "Baloo, how do I figure out how many apples do I give each of us so that we get equal amounts?"
"Just divide 12 by4 to give you 3. You each get 3 apples. See Mowgli?"
"Yes, I think I do," the young student replied.
As they continued on, they came across the evil tiger Shere-Khan. He was trying to figure out what x equalled in the equation x2 + 6x - 17=0. Baloo turned to Mowgli and said, "You know what Mowgli, that stuff makes no sense. You don’t have to know that."
They returned to Baloo’s tree house where Mowgli finished his homework in record time. He was excited for math. We all know the rest. Mowgli becomes great in math, gets a scholarship, works hard, and becomes Head Professor at the local University.`
BY: Dan
