You are having a dinner party for six people, including you. The dessert is going to be chocolate mousse. Everybody loves chocolate mousse - it's so rich and creamy and fluffy and delicious! You know the guests will eat a lot of it, so you'll make more than one serving per person.

The following recipe for chocolate mousse makes enough for six people.

4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
1 cup lukewarm water
1 cup of sugar
3 egg whites
1 pint whipping cream

Melt chocolate in top of double boiler. Melt water and sugar over low heat until sugar melts. Add sugar syrup to chocolate and beat. Beat egg whites until stiff. Whip cream and fold with egg whites. Beat chocolate again. If chocolate has thickened add 1 more tablespoon water. Fold chocolate into cream and spoon into individual glasses or cups. Chill.

You have not decided whether you should double, triple or quadruple the recipe.

Use a spreadsheet to figure out how much of each ingredient you will need for each of the possible scenarios. Open up a ClarisWorks WP document, turn on the tool panel, choose the spreadsheet tool and drag in a 6 row by 6 column spreadsheet. Format all the cells to have center, wrap alignment. Using the format pulldown, make the row height of row 1 be 30 point. Also, format row one to have bold text. Enter your labels as shown in the example spreadsheet. Input the ingredients, units and amounts for one recipe's worth as shown on the example spreadsheet.

Now, write formulas in cells D2, E2 and F2 that will double, triple and quadruple the numerical amounts in column C.

EXAMPLE SPREADSHEET:

Now that you know how much of each ingredient it will take for all three options, you can decide which option to choose.

Next, let's take a look at the growth pattern of the ingredients. Choose one ingredient to analyze. It would be good if some people choose chocolate, some choose sugar, some cream, and so on. Insert a 5 row, two column spreadsheet below your first spreadsheet and format the height of row 1 for 30 point. Enter the data for column A as shown on the example. The sizing factor means the amount by which you multiply the original recipe. So, a sizing factor of 1 means you're not multiplying it at all. A sizing factor of 2 means doubling the recipe, 3 is tripling, etc. In cell B1, write the unit and ingredient you have chosen (ounces of chocolate, cups of sugar, etc.). Then, find the single, double and quadruple amounts from the correct row on your first spreadsheet and enter those in column B.

Highlight the whole spreadsheet and make an x,y line graph.

What have you discovered? Has everyone discovered the same thing? Does it matter which ingredient you chose?

What does this graph mean about the way the amount of ingredient behaves in relation to the sizing factor? What kind of relationship is it? Extension - what about the slopes? Are they all the same? Discuss the logic of your findings.