Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Day 159 - Shadow Math - Mrs. Tate - MSMS Math Dept.


We have been taking advantage of this beautiful weather by doing our math lessons outdoors.  This past week sixth grade students learned how to set up proportions from similar triangles.  In order to set up our proportions we used the height of a person or object and then measured the shadow it produced.  We then selected another person or object to measure to create a proportion.  Sometimes we decided to calculate the height of the object and other times we chose to calculate the length of the shadow.  In some instances we were able to actually measure either the shadow’s length/object’s height to see how close our mathematics calculation got!  In some instances, the object we chose was too tall to measure- so hopefully our math was correct!   Students chose to work with proportions involving their bodies, a lamp post, street sign, trees, and trash can.  Here are some pictures of the students in action and their mathematics calculations.







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