And on to the next cycle! The geometry we are doing in this cycle is mostly trigonometry so we are going to start the cycle in this vein. The project's theme is being a Research Assistant and starting a lab. So they will have to help build it (and need to do some trigonometry and decide on an optimal shape and dimensions of things), determine proper dosage and how much of the drug is needed in various circumstances (data management and algebraic models), and decide what kind of loan to get and how to invest profits (personal finance).
Today we worked on the Pythagorean Theorem. They have been seeing this since grade 8, so this is very much a review. The mistakes that often get made with the Pythagorean Theorem are that students try to use it with non-right triangles as well as they tend to forget that the hypotenuse is always the "c" (or always the side by itself on the one side of the = sign). So to address this, I started with the following activity:
I am hoping by starting with this, students got the idea that they have to be careful which side they sum the squares of the other two sides and also that they cannot use the Pythagorean Theorem with any triangle. I pulled it together by finishing the lesson with page 3 and students worked on page 4 to finish the class:
Students flew through this and really seemed to understand. In retrospect, I might in future combine this with a review of SOH-CAH-TOA. We'll see!
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