Musings from Mrs. Galvan

We are midway through a unit on inequalities. My favorite inequality related topic is Linear Programming. In class after spring break we will   do this , an in class investigation using farm expenses as our subject matter. For more examples, see here . In previous years, I'd call it a day after the "project" and move on to Radicals. Now I am committed to engaging my students more with assignments that will both get them to think and make for good posts to their digital portfolios. My idea is to have them write and solve their own linear programming problem in teams of 2. See my prompt for the assignment below. I welcome feedback. I am a little worried that I am not giving them enough to go in regards to researching and writing their problem. I will report back with samples after they do the assignment. Linear Programming Bloject So now that you have had practice with linear programming, your next objective is to create your own problem. What is int...

Usual Problem: New plan: Question: What is the area of an orange slice cut 3 cm from the top? 1. Give each kid (or pair of kids) an orange. Luckily, I have an orange tree. 2. Make other supplies available: string, ruler, plastic knives, plate 3. Challenge them to come up with a solution before making a cut 4. Compare calculated results with actual slice. 5. Eat the orange. 6. Students take pictures of their experiments while in progress and report results on blogs.

Imagine you're standing on the beach, sand in your toes, wind in your face and you're all consumed by a gorgeous sunset. As you stare at the horizon, you imagine being able to see all the way to... Wait how far is it? This week in geometry we are learning about tangent lines. My students use Pythagorean theorem to calculate about how far it is to the horizon.