Measuring height with Trig

I started to share this project with someone the other day and realized I had never written a blog post for it. We have used this project for quite some time and I love the digital aspect having students label their image and explain their process. We have the students make the clinometers but we give them little guidance as far as the project goes. We want them to problem solve and figure it out. We simply tell them to go measure something bigger than they are. I also limit their travel to school grounds (I did have a student go to the nearby gas station once. You have to be specific!!) I had a group of students last year that forgot their tape measure so they measured in shoe length (yes, I had a one-shoed student outside) and then converted that to inches when they came inside. I love the thought process behind their solution!

Not only does this give purpose to the study of trig, it also gets students outside and working together. It also helps students understand angle of elevation a little better with concrete examples.

I love the first one. She wrote a word problem for her image. Hmm… might have to steal that idea!!

I’ve included my clinometer document (I did steal the image from someone, sorry whoever you are!) and my scoring guide.

Trig Project Scoring Guide

GuideBuild a Clinometer

Happy measuring! 

Practicing Online Graphing

I’m sitting here watching my Algebra 1 students take the EOC, hoping that I’ve prepared them for the questions they will encounter on the test. I don’t like that we can’t see the questions to know if we have taught them the right stuff or asked the questions the right way.

One thing I do to get them ready is to have them practice graphing electronically. I created performance event type questions in Google Slides. They practice labeling each axis, dragging the dots to the grid and using the line tool to draw a line. Hopefully our practice will pay off!

I know students want to do well and teachers want to prepare them well. It’s more challenging when you have no idea what the questions will be. Good luck Algebra 1 troopers!

I’ve shared two of my performance events below. They are set to view only so make a copy. If you use it and find them helpful, please let me know.

       

Quadratic Scavenger Hunt & Foldable

Through #MTBoS I found a video from (insert name here when I find it again) talking about using Google in the classroom.  I’m always looking for ideas I haven’t thought of before.  Most of the video was reinforcement for what I already do but he did have a foldable (please comment if this is yours so I can credit you) created in Google Slides.  I loved it.

I combined this foldable with a QR scavenger hunt to reinforce question prompts in quadratic word problems.  This was a thinking activity for the students.  They don’t usually like thinking activities. They did enjoy the QR part and I could tell by the discussions at the tables that thinking was happening.  In the end, they had a resource to use while working their practice problems.

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Below are the links to my files.  They are set to read only so you’ll have to make a copy to use them.  You will also want to make your own QR codes so students are pulling these images from your Drive.  I used the goo.gl extension in my Chrome browser.

Foldable

Image 1      Image 2     Image 3      Image 4

If you use this idea please leave a comment or send me a tweet.  I love to get ideas from others too!