As the bell rang for the beginning of math class, Miss Cindamy looked around the classroom and noticed that all her students were staring longingly out the windows. It was the first warm sunny day after a long dreary winter and she had to admit that she would rather be outside too.

Sandy said, "It's so beautiful outside today can't we please go out?"

Ricco added, "We could do our math sums in the sun." There was an audible groan from the class.

"I know, let's count how many steps there are in front of the building," contributed Billy.

"What a dumb suggestion," said Bonnie, "that would take less than a minute."

"Yea, then maybe we could play ball," pleaded DJ.

"No," defended Billy, "I don't mean just count the steps, I mean count different ways we can go up the steps."

Miss Cindamy looked at Billy with interest, they had been studying patterns in class and this gave her an idea.

"Ok class," said Miss Cindamy, "we are going to go outside and I want you to work in pairs to see how many different ways you can find to WALK up the front steps. But first we need some rules." She wrote on the board:
 






When the class came back in later they began to work on a chart:
Miss Cindamy asked, "Do you see a pattern?"

There are 15 steps in front of their building, how many ways did the class discovered to walk up the steps?

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Judy Ann Brown

27 April 1997