This scene deals with "little man" Tate answering a quiz-bowl competition question after his older arrogant classmate has faltered on one of them. The scene has several errors dealing with definitions and calculations (see if your students can find them), although Tate's answer of 24 is correct. The algebraic solution of that problem leads to a nice nonlinear system.
The Man Without a Face (Finding the Center of a Circle Given Three Points)
Mel Gibson is tutoring a student in mathematics, and illustrates the geometric construction leading to locating the center of a circle given three points on the circle. His basic idea is correct, but his drawing is a bit inaccurate. See if your students can point out the inaccuracies.
Blank Check (Computing Time for an Investment to Reach a Given Value)
How long will it take $11 to grow to $1,000,000 at 3.45% interest? No matter how many times it is compounded annually or even if compounded continuously, there is no way you should get the answer given in this scene. Have students use the compound interest formulas to get the correct answer.
Little Big League (Rate-of-Work Problem)
The young manager of the Minnesota Twins can't keep his mind on the upcoming playoff game because he has to solve a rate-of-work problem. He gets several humorous suggestions and finally the intelligent player gives him the correct answer, but in a manner most teachers would abhor, since his formula, though correct, is not justified. Ask students to work the problem in the usual fashion, and then ask the better students and classes to derive the formula the player gives.
How Green Was My Valley (Rate-of-Work Problem)
Here is another rate-of-work problem, dealing with filling a tub with water. There's an added complication that a hole is letting water out as well. Have students work the problem to show the answer is 4 minutes.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Using Fractions)
This short scene deals with a simple problem involving homework, fractions, and trains crashing. Teachers and parents will love Richard Dreyfuss' answer about why HE doesn't have to do homework problems.
The School of Rock (Miscellaneous Problems, and Magic Number 9)
Substitute teacher/rock musician Jack Black questions his mathematics students using music (since math is one of the boring subjects). Notice that his final verse is "And that's a magic number", referring to the number 9. The 1970s Saturday morning series Schoolhouse Rock used this description for the number 3 in its "Multiplication Rock" song. The link below gives a great number trick, based on multiples of 9: http://trunks.secondfoundation.org/files/psychic.swf
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