My first instinct is that the manhole cover problem belongs in the appaalication level of Bloom’s Taxonomy, because it asks why round is better than square. Further thought tells me that it could also fall into the synthesis level because students could suggest what problems might arise if cities used square instead of round, and they could also design a new manhole cover that would work better.

As a class activity, this sounds like a great group activity because students like working in groups and several heads might come up with more responses than just one head. We could then create a “class list” of reasons why round is better than square, a “class list” of things that might happen if cities used square, and each group could design a new manhole cover that would work better than round, complete with reasons why it would work better.

The eggs in a basket problem really stumped me. I admit, I had to look at the answer before I could proceed. I think I would like to do a couple of other problems from that great list of problems in the web site first, to give students some ideas of what kinds of answers might work. Once they see that there isn’t just one difinitive answer, they might relax and begin providing some possible solutions.

Did anyone else look over some of those other problems provided on that web site. They are great! Some of them seem more like high school problems, but what fun students could have coming up with possible answers.