riding the rails essays

riding the rails essays The Depression caused hard times for everybody, but I think it was especially difficult for men since they were the ones responsible for making the money for food and things for the families. This forced many of them to leave their homes in search of work, most just rode the railroads in search of work. These men were dubbed the name "Hobos". One story that I read was about a guy named Henry Koczar, from East Chicago. He was 19 years old when he left his family. Being part of a big family mad it hard on his parents to put food on the table every day. Especially because his father was now suffering from stomach ulcers and to top it off out of work. Henry wanted only for his family to have it a little bit easier and felt he was old enough now to start working on his own. So in September of 1932 he took off on a train in hopes of lightening the burden on his family. Now not all of the hobos were out of high school and ready for work. Some of them were just kids when they started life on their own. The ones I'm going to talk about were only 11, 12 and 13 years old! Berkeley Hacket was one of those kids that didn't enjoy school too much. One day he just ran away on his way there. The year was 1929, he was 13 years old. Dials and Emmy, I think, were smart. They kept each other company along the way. The two left their Seattle home in 1929. When they reached Auborn Yards it was near 2:00, shortly after they began their eight hour haul over the Cascade Mountains. Emma was 11 and Dials was 12. Claude Franklin simply said his lust to wander was all it took for him to run away. Leslie E. Pauls had kind of an ironically coincidental situation, he happened to be the son and step-son of railroad men. He keeps vivid memories of his Duluth home, sittin' back in the summer time on the porch he grew up on. That was when he left, in the summer, it was 1933 and he had just graduated from high school ...

Determining If a Number Is Prime

Determining If a Number Is Prime A prime number is a numeral that is greater than 1 and cannot be divided evenly by any other number except 1 and itself. If a number can be divided evenly by any other number not counting itself and 1, it is not prime and is referred to as a composite number. Factors vs. Multiples When working with prime numbers, students should know the difference between factors and multiples. These two terms are easily confused, but factors are numbers that can be divided evenly into the given number, while multiples are the results of multiplying that number by another. Additionally, prime numbers are whole numbers that must be greater than one, and as a result, zero and one are not considered prime numbers, nor is any number less than zero; the number two is the first prime number, as it can only be divided by itself and the number 1. Using Factorization Using a process called factorization, mathematicians can quickly determine whether a number is prime. To use factorization, you need to know that a factor is any number that can be multiplied by another number to get the same result. For instance, the prime factors of the number 10 are 2 and 5 because these whole numbers can be multiplied by one another to equal 10. However, 1 and 10 are also considered factors of 10 because they can be multiplied by one another to equal 10. This is expressed in the prime factors of 10 as 5 and 2 since both 1 and 10 are not prime numbers. An easy way for students to use factorization to determine if a number is prime is by giving them concrete counting items like beans, buttons, or coins. They can use these to divide objects into ever-smaller groups. For example, they could divide 10 marbles into two groups of five or five groups of two. Using a Calculator After using the concrete method as described in the previous section, students can use calculators and the concept of divisibility to determine whether a number is prime. Have students take a calculator and key in the number to determine whether it is prime. The number should divide into a whole number. For example, take the number 57. Have students divide the number by 2. They will see that the quotient is 27.5, which is not an even number. Now have them divide 57 by 3. They will see that this quotient is a whole number: 19. So, 19 and 3 are factors of 57, which is, then, not a prime number. Other Methods Another way to find if a number is prime is by using a factorization tree, where students determine the common factors  of multiple numbers. For instance, if a student is factoring the number 30, she could begin with 10 x 3 or 15 x 2. In each case, she continues to factor- 10 (2 x 5) and 15 (3 x 5). The end result will yield the same prime factors: 2, 3 and 5 because 5 x 3 x 2 30, as does 2 x 3 x 5. Simple division with pencil and paper can also be a good method for teaching young learners how to determine prime numbers. First, divide the number by two, then by three, four, and five if none of those factors yields a whole number. This method is useful to help someone just starting out to understand what makes a number prime.