Integrated Foundations and Pre-Calculus Project

I'm mulling over ideas for projects for Foundations and Pre-Calculus 10 Projects. FPC10 seems like the perfect place to do some 2 variable linear regressions. Students could measure age vs. height or age vs. mass or age vs. almost any physical characteristic to create scatter plots and make lines of best fit. This integrates quite a few curricular concepts and involves kids in the school.

Absolute Value

I came across this post about teaching absolute value at Kate Nowak's blog. Absolute value is not in Foundations and Pre-Calculus 10, but I think it is a valuable idea, and engages students in the use of absolute value.

Painting By Functions

One of the things that got me motivated in mathematics was drawing graphs with a computer. When I was in grades 6, 7 and 8, I would sit down at the Apple IIgs and pound out basic program after basic program graphing sin(x), cos(x), circles, ellipses, and all manner of graphs. I continue to love producing beautiful graphs in my notes and exams. I don't give my students enough time just to explore graphs, and today I came across a post containing an interesting way of helping promoting graphing and exploration. Why not have students draw things with graphs? This is something I would definitely like to try.

Cartesian Battleship

Another great game from Dan Meyer's blog is Cartesian Battleship. He really has some great stuff, including in this case worksheets and overheads. This activity is probably a little to simple for Grade 10, but would be a fun way to review the cartesian plane.

Cup Stacking

Another great activity shared at Dan Meyer's blog is Linear Fun #2 Stacking Cups. It challenges students to use styrofoam cups to measure the teacher. Its the type of activity that hits a wide range of curriculum points at the same time.

Vector Racer–Teaching Slope

Dan Meyer has a great blog. It has served as an inspiration for my teaching and has some great and creative ideas for teaching math. Race Track is a game to familiarize students with the cartesian plane (and some basic physics principles) by racing around a track. http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=2008. A more precise description is given here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racetrack_(game). This is also known as vector racer and there are online versions.

A New Blog For a New Curriculum

Saskatchewan is moving to a new high school math curriculum, and I was trying to think of a way to organize ideas for assignments and lessons that included the ability to tag information with its curriculum strands. I realized that blogger has that type of ability, so I am going to give it a try; any ideas that I have will be put here.