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Fermi Questions


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John Dabell

I trained as a primary school teacher 25 years ago, starting my career in London and then I taught in a range of schools in the Midlands. In between teaching jobs, I worked as an Ofsted inspector (no hate mail please!), national in-service provider, project...
Read more about John Dabell

Have you ever tried asking some Fermi questions?

One questioning strategy worth trying in class is ‘Fermi questions’.

Fermi questions are named after the physicist and Nobel Prize winner Enrico Fermi.

He challenged his students to use estimation, common sense and numerical reasoning to work out quantities that were difficult or impossible to measure. He deliberately posed questions with limited information so that students had to ask more questions. His questions emphasise the process rather than the answer.

Examples of Fermi questions

* How many times could you say the alphabet in 24 hours?

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28th April 20176th August 2021 by John Dabell
Posted in Assessment, Basic Account, Teaching and LearningTagged assumptions, curiosity, Education, Enrico Fermi, estimation, Gorden Pope, Nobel Prize, prediction, questioning technique, School, teaching

19 thoughts on “Fermi Questions”

  1. Norah Colvin says:
    28th April 2017 at 11:57 am

    What a great selection of Fermi questions. I can understand why students would enjoy them, and see their potential to get students thinking and discussing.

  2. emily says:
    5th December 2018 at 1:43 am

    can you post some of the possible answers?

    1. @TeacherToolkit says:
      5th December 2018 at 10:27 am

      Haha – which one?

    2. Aiden says:
      9th January 2020 at 1:19 pm

      the Earth to Moon one is 8.770248688 Years walking 5Km/h. the distance is 384,400Km

  3. Pingback: 365 Characteristics Of Good Teachers | TeacherToolkit
  4. Pingback: Fermi Questioning | TeacherToolkit
  5. G Adnitt says:
    14th December 2019 at 8:36 am

    I have a bottom set of dispirited kids who talk or draw and reject the formal learning. I’m going to try a question from this list, to see if it sparks their attention. Thanks!

    1. @TeacherToolkit says:
      14th December 2019 at 2:33 pm

      Let me know if you need anything else…

  6. John Dabell says:
    15th December 2019 at 1:12 pm

    Thanks, I wrote the list and there’s plenty more where they came from!

  7. Stephen Ealey says:
    17th January 2020 at 1:33 pm

    Fermi questions are on the syllabus for the Core Maths exam. Some great ideas here for the next time I teach it.

    1. @TeacherToolkit says:
      17th January 2020 at 6:09 pm

      Good to know!

  8. suchi says:
    30th July 2020 at 2:40 pm

    “When you take a single breath, how many molecules of gas you intake would have come from the dying breath of Mahatma Gandhi ?”

    How much air has been exhaled by Mahatma Gandhi in his last breath?

    What is the volume of air in earth’s atmosphere? Radius of the Earth(RE) is approximately 6,400 km and 100 km is often used as the border between the atmosphere and outer space. But, 75% of the atmospheric air is within about 11 km of the surface.

    What fraction of Gandhiji’s last exhaled air is present in a unit volume of atmosphere? we assume that during these 70 years it’s evenly distributed in earth’s atmosphere.

    How many air molecules you inhale in each breath?

    What are the chances that your current inhaled air contains air from Gandhiji’s last breath?

    1. Dr. Sanjnaa says:
      9th November 2020 at 11:08 am

      Can you please share possible answers of these questions

      1. @TeacherToolkit says:
        10th November 2020 at 10:56 am

        There are so many possibilities, that would make it too easy for you and others reading…

  9. JEETENDRA KUMAR PAIKARAY says:
    4th September 2020 at 5:22 pm

    Very good and resourceful

  10. Lynne Melia says:
    18th December 2020 at 10:42 am

    I put one on the wall (and on Google Classroom) each Monday morning for my students to discuss and play with during our staggered starts and finishes. I have a year 6 class and about half of them really enjoy it. The rest either ignore it or think it’s silly. I don’t make a fuss, just support and encourage the ones who want to try them. It has made some of my less mature children think a bit more critically and organise their thinking in problem solving during maths lessons.

    1. @TeacherToolkit says:
      18th December 2020 at 2:10 pm

      A good effort nonetheless; perhaps an engaging image alongside the fermi question will work wonders?

  11. Andrew Hudson says:
    24th March 2021 at 2:48 pm

    Great to see some many people interested in this Topic – Fermi questions are so valuable for maths thinking and inclusive of all as you can respond with simple or complex solutions.
    One thing to consider is relevance. Shouldn’t we try and ask questions that are worth answering.
    Why ask – “How many pieces of popcorn does it take to fill a cinema?” (who cares!!) – when you can ask “How many people can you fit in a cinema and still observe social distancing rules?”
    I usually have some criteria for my Fermi questions – they need to be
    Meaningful (worth knowing)
    Achievable
    Relevant (to the student cohort)
    Challenging (involving enough maths for complex answers as well as simple solutions”

    1. @TeacherToolkit says:
      24th March 2021 at 3:18 pm

      Agree – it’s a fantastic methodology.

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