In this Cyberchase video segment, the CyberSquad learns what happens to the area of a rectangle when the shape enclosed by the perimeter changes.
Students will measure the dimensions of containers in the garden to determine the volume of soil and work out computations based off the volume.
This article discusses an example of a practical use of the square root of 2 by explaining how this irrational number figures in printing two pages on one side of A series-sized paper. This resource is from PUMAS - Practical Uses of Math and Science - a collection of brief examples created by scientists and engineers showing how math and science topics taught in K-12 classes have real world applications.
This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach third graders an overview of area and perimeter.
Students analyze and begin to design a pyramid. Working in engineering teams, they perform calculations to determine the area of the pyramid base, stone block volumes, and the number of blocks required for their pyramid base. They make a scaled drawing of the pyramid using graph paper.
Students learn about contact stress and its applications in engineering. They are introduced to the concept of heavy loads, such as buildings, elephants, people and traffic, and learn how those heavy loads apply contact stress. Through the analysis of their own footprints, students determine their contact stress.
Students are introduced to the concepts of stress and strain with examples that illustrate the characteristics and importance of these forces in our everyday lives. They explore the factors that affect stress, why engineers need to know about it, and the ways engineers describe the strength of materials. In an associated literacy activity, while learning about the stages of group formation, group dynamics and team member roles, students discover how collective action can alleviate personal feelings of stress and tension.
Playing the role of engineers in collaborations with the marketing and production teams in a chocolate factory, students design a container for a jumbo chocolate bar. The projects constraints mean the container has to be a regular trapezoidal prism. The design has to optimize the material used to construct the container; that is, students have to find the dimensions of the container with the maximum volume possible. After students come up with their design, teams present a final version of the product that includes creative branding and presentation. The problem-solving portion of this project requires students to find a mathematical process to express the multiple variables in the prism’s volume formula as a single variable cubic polynomial function. Students then use technology to determine the value for which this function has a maximum and, with this value, find the prism’s optimal dimensions.
In this activity, students learn how engineers design faucets. Students will learn about water pressure by building a simple system to model faucets and test the relationship between pressure, area and force. This is a great outdoor activity on a warm day.
An interactive applet and associated web page showing how to find the area and perimeter of a trapezoid from the coordinates of its vertices. The trapezoid can be either parallel to the axes or rotated. The grid and coordinates can be turned on and off. The area and perimeter calculation can be turned off to permit class exercises and then turned back on the verify the answers. The applet can be printed as it appears on the screen to make handouts. The web page has a full description of the method for determining area and perimeter, a worked example and has links to other pages relating to coordinate geometry. Applet can be enlarged to full screen size for use with a classroom projector. This resource is a component of the Math Open Reference Interactive Geometry textbook project at http://www.mathopenref.com.
An interactive applet and associated web page that demonstrate that in similar triangles, the ratio of their areas is the square of the ratio of the sides. As you drag one triangle to resize it, it remains similar to another and the ratios of sides and areas is calculated as you drag. One can be seen to be the square of the other at all times. A slight 'snap-to' effect allows easy selection of integer ratios (2:4 etc). Applet can be enlarged to full screen size for use with a classroom projector. This resource is a component of the Math Open Reference interactive geometry reference book project at http://www.mathopenref.com.
These Trigonometry lecture videos coterminal angles, trig functions, quadrantal angles, special acute angles, co-functions, finding theta, reference angles, trig functions, radian measure, arc length, area of a sector, graphing sine and cosine using t-table, amplitude and frequency, phase shift for sine and consine, vertical shift, tangent curve, cotangent transformations, evaluating trig identities, trig expressions, sum and difference for cosine, double and half angle identities, inverse, principal values, solving difficult trig equations, law of cosines, area of a triangle, and vectors and bearing.
This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach third graders about given the perimeter, find the side length and area - squares.
Students in this lesson will learn about, connect and apply the use of area to a real-world problem—creating a planting guide for the garden. Students will determine the square footage of the garden and use this information, along with a planting chart to create their own plan.
In this lesson, students will build conceptual understanding and fluency in using area and perimeter by measuring and calculating the dimensions of vegetable beds.
How can we use area and multiplication to measure the amount of space an area has?Students will explore the concepts of multiplication and area by measuring rectangular planting beds in the garden.
Challenged with a hypothetical engineering work situation in which they need to figure out the volume and surface area of a nuclear power plant’s cooling tower (a hyperbolic shape), students learn to calculate the volume of complex solids that can be classified as solids of revolution or solids with known cross sections. These objects of complex shape defy standard procedures to compute volumes. Even calculus techniques depend on the ability to perform multiple measurements of the objects or find functional descriptions of their edges. During both guided and independent practice, students use (free GeoGebra) geometry software, a photograph of the object, a known dimension of it, a spreadsheet application and integral calculus techniques to calculate the volume of complex shape solids within a margin of error of less than 5%—an approach that can be used to compute the volumes of big or small objects. This activity is suitable for the end of the second semester of AP Calculus classes, serving as a major grade for the last six-week period, with students’ project results presentation grades used as the second semester final test.
Students apply their knowledge of scale and geometry to design wearables that would help people in their daily lives, perhaps for medical reasons or convenience. Like engineers, student teams follow the steps of the design process, to research the wearable technology field (watching online videos and conducting online research), brainstorm a need that supports some aspect of human life, imagine their own unique designs, and then sketch prototypes (using Paint®). They compare the drawn prototype size to its intended real-life, manufactured size, determining estimated length and width dimensions, determining the scale factor, and the resulting difference in areas. After considering real-world safety concerns relevant to wearables (news article) and getting preliminary user feedback (peer critique), they adjust their drawn designs for improvement. To conclude, they recap their work in short class presentations.
Students will observe and record real-time weather measurements. Students will summarize important information and use written communication skills to inform and report.
Students will have to solve the real world problem of locker smell leakage by building an air filter that will cover the vents on the top of a locker. This project goes well with a curriculum on the particle nature of gases and phase changes.