1. The Grocer’s Problem

2. Exercise: The Grocer’s Problem
Imagine that you work for Pat, who owns a small grocery store in the middle of the city, with a sidewalk running along its front.
This begins a series of screens for an exercise that starts at the first level of telescoping beneath an exercise icon on screen 8. This photo is just a placeholder -- we can get a better photo, or even a cartoon sketch. I developed this version of this exercise and have used this exercise successfully with high school students, and I am confident that middle-school students will find it manageable and engaging. I have a guide to the exercise ready for the teacher’s manual.

3. Statutory Text
Pat, the owner, does not work at the store but has posted a general rule in the store office:
When fresh fruits or vegetables arrive, place them in the window display case if they would tend to attract “impulse shoppers” into the store (people who were not already planning to shop here). Otherwise, place the fruits or vegetables in the interior of the store. This way, we can increase the number of customers who enter our store, who make purchases, and who may become regular customers.
This is sort of like a statute, created by Pat acting as the legislature.
Alternatively, the colon above could be followed by an icon, which when brings up a representation of a typewritten or hand-written memo posted on a board.

4. Two Applications of Pat’s Rule
When the store manager, Kim, received a crate of washed, shiny, red apples, he placed them in the window display case.
When a crate of unwashed carrots arrived, Kim placed them in the interior of the store.

5. New Case: Red Bell Peppers
Kim is away for the afternoon, and a crate of these shiny, washed red bell peppers arrives. Where should you put them?

6. Are the bell peppers more like the carrots or the apples? In what way?