Subject: The WOW effect
From: Martha Haehl (haehl@kcmetro.cc.mo.us)
Date: Mon May 01 2000 - 22:53:57 EDT
Hi all,
I thought I would share something that we did in class that got the WOW
effect when graphing parabolas. I was using the grapher tool of Interactive
Math, but the same could be done with any graphing tool that will project
the graph onto the white board or blackboard. We projected the coordinate
grid onto the board and taped a hanging chain from 2 ends which of course
fell into a parabolic shape. I intentionally did not center the parabola
around the y-axis. We visually estimated the vertex, y-intercept and one
other point, then students used the information to find the equation of the
parabola. With the chain still taped to the board, we graphed the resulting
quadratic function. Students were amazed (and so was I since they did the
calculations) that the graph was almost identical to the hanging chain. It
made a potentially dry topic interesting.
Have a good end of term.
Martha
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