I'm currently teaching my grade 9 students about linear relationships. We create scatter plots, draw lines of best fit, use the information to make predictions and so on. As we came to the end of the unit I felt as though we hadn't done enough. I felt that somehow it would be far more interesting if we could connect this section of the course to another section. The measurement unit seemed like a simple connection.
I gave students 12 straws and asked them to find the rectangle that would give the largest area. They messed around with the straws, made tables and graphs and determined from their graphs what the largest possible area was. Next I gave the 12 linking cubes and asked them to create the rectangle with the smallest perimeter. Again they played, created tables and a graphs but the solution wasn't as obvious.
None of this work is ground breaking or much different from what I have done in the past. The only differences were that I cross pollinated (some might say spiralled) the units. I think this helps show students that mathematics is interconnected, that it's possible for units to have a common thread. The other difference was that I physically gave them objects to manipulate, which is different from how I taught this before. In the past I would have them draw out rectangles. I think something gets lost here. It was very obvious to students what was going on when they were manipulating the physical objects.
Although neither of the graphs were linear it was useful to create them and to discuss what type of correlations there were and read information off the graph. We will revisit this concept again in the measurement unit. I look forward to seeing how well they retain the information.
As a side note, the graph of the maximum area was a parabola as expected. Without thinking too much about it, I expected the perimeter to do the same. As I saw students' graphs I wondered why they were the shape they were. I did the algebra and recalled that the resulting function was a rational function. Looks like a good problem for the grade 12 students. Tomorrow: Determine the function that minimizes the perimeter of a rectangle.
Great stuff! Linking the expectations and units is a great idea to keep their new knowledge at the forefront! Also, I think we get hung up a lot in our grade 9 class on linear stuff. Everything is linear. But everything is not linear!! Like that you threw in something non-linear. Great conversions happen this way. And I believe those conversations strengthen their knowledge of linear relations too!
ReplyDeleteWe spend so much time looking at linear relations that many grade 10 and 11 students have a hard time imagining that there could be any other type of relationship. Hopefully we can continue the conversation and get them thinking about it a little more.
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