9-12
This lesson introduces students to the many factors that play a role in
creating a forest-fire danger rating index. They will be looking at how
we use a scale to quantify the abstract idea of forest fire danger.
Using the real-world situation, students examine the meaning of the
slope and intercepts of a line. To complete the activities related to
these indexes, students should be comfortable with linear, quadratic
and exponential functions and their graphs. Students’ facility with a
graphing calculator is assumed. Students also use summation notation to
do the activities relating to the Nesterov index. This lesson plan was
adapted from the article "Smokey the Bear Takes Algebra," which
appeared in the October 1999 issue of the
Mathematics Teacher.
6-8, 9-12
The consideration of cord length is very important in a bungee jump—too short, and the jumper doesn’t get much of a thrill; too long, and
ouch! In this lesson, students model a bungee jump using a Barbie
® doll and rubber bands. The distance to which the doll will fall is directly proportional to the number of rubber bands, so this context is used to examine linear functions.
9-12
Collect
data and determine the best type of
function to describe the trend.9-12
This activity allows students to look for functions within a given set of data. After analyzing the data, students should be able to determine what type of function best represents the data.
9-12
Predicting the right time to take that first sip of any hot beverage is difficult. Unfortunately, the temperature of hot coffee does not decrease steadily (linearly) over time. If so, it would be easy to predict when to take that first sip. Which function best represents the rate at which coffee cools: linear, quadratic, square root, absolute value, exponential or logarithmic?
9-12
Students often ask, “When are we ever going to use this?” Compound interest is a topic that provides an inherent answer to this question. In this activity, students use their knowledge of exponents to compute an investment’s worth using a formula and a compound interest simulator. Students also use the simulator to analyze credit card payments and debt.
6-8, 9-12
In this lesson, students will use Cuisenaire Rods to build trains of different lengths and investigate patterns. Students will use tables to create graphs, define recursive functions, and approximate exponential formulas to describe the patterns.
6-8, 9-12
In this lesson, students will use Cuisenaire Rods to build trains of different lengths and investigate patterns. Students will use tables to create graphs, define recursive functions, and approximate exponential formulas to describe the patterns.
9-12
In this lesson, students consider the costs of owning a car and ways to lessen those costs. In particular, highway and city mileage are considered, and optimal mileage is calculated using fuel consumption versus speed data.
9-12
Students measure the diameter and circumference of various circular
objects, plot the measurements on a graph, and relate the slope of the
line to π, the ratio of circumference to diameter.
