One can also use an exponential spread: "Is it more like 1, 10, 100, 1000, ... ?". And do explicit bounding, with high/low confidence bounds. "How many cats l

One can also use an exponential spread: "Is it more like 1, 10, 100, 1000, ... ?". And do explicit bounding, with high/low confidence bounds. "How many cats live in this neighborhood? Is it more like 1, 10, 100, 1000, and so on?" "Hard lower bound of 1 - that one over there". "Hard upper bound of 1M - we'd be tripping on a cat per sq meter". "Soft lower bound of 10 - I think it likely there are at least 2 more cats somewhere, which gets us to order 10". In an educational setting, bounding has much nicer conversational dynamics than the much more commonly used point estimates. Instead of identity-entangled long chains of approximation, followed by "I don't like your step C", "Well, your step B is a gross underestimate". And then "oh, the answer is X, but we said something else, which we'll now arbitrarily call right/wrong and move on". Instead you can get a much more collaborative "Can anyone suggest another bound, upper or lower, hard or soft?" "Does anyone have any questions about that proposal?" "Any suggestions on resolving those questions?" "Ok, can anyone suggest another bound?" And when bounds are compared to ground truth, there's the richer followup of which bounds held. And while a soft bound blown might be bad luck, a hard bound blown means something was misunderstood, permitting fruitful failure analysis. And it's intensive "scientific dialog" practice - the discussion around each bound is another iteration.