Law of Sines: The Ambiguous Case

Everyone's favorite lesson... Law of Sines and the Ambiguous Case! No teacher ever dreads this, right? I mean, the students pick it up immediately. Okay, in all seriousness, our kiddos may struggle with this in the beginning so we feel it's important to allow them to create each scenario of the ambiguous case using this hands-on activity.

Clearly, this is not an original activity (I stole a version decades ago - no clue from where). However, we have updated it to work with our particular students and our personalities. If you are interested in a copy, just click here.

In this version of the Ambiguous Case activity, we have students using dry erase markers on their desks. For some reason, this is pretty exciting for them - I guess they have been reprimanded in the past for writing on desks... huh. My philosophy? As long as they clean it before they leave, what does it matter? Of course, I provide them with disinfecting wipes. They don't even realize they're helping clean the room 😏

Using spaghetti, as opposed to simply drawing a line, for the third side of the triangle is very helpful. I actually buy bulk spaghetti for several different classroom activities - cashiers probable think I have an addiction to Italian food. Anyhoo, the spaghetti allows the students to have mobile units to their triangles so that connections can truly be made to the three possible outcomes of SSA. The downside - our desks are slanted so some students struggle keeping the pieces of spaghetti off the floor.

Taking the time for this activity is well worth it. It has been too long to recall not using some sort of engaging lesson for the Law of Sines - and why wouldn't you want your students engaged and learning?

We hope you enjoy our version of this activity!

~RJ and SSB

Comments

AP Calculus Hunger Games Review

I created this a couple of years ago when Hunger Games was really popular. However, I thought that I would share with all of you in case you wanted to use or revamp to something newer. I created 12 groups for the 12 districts. They decided what their name would be as a district. They had tasks each day to accomplish. The tasks were just multiple choice questions centered around the major topics of Calculus AB. This took a lot longer than I thought - about 4 days. I was forced to give them more than 15 minutes for each task (which did not make me happy since the AP exam is timed - Oh well.) I had the time, and it worked out. You can decide how you want to the points to work, I gave them 2 points for each correct answer. It was very easy to grade as this is the student worksheet. They placed the letter of the answer in each spot. I made them show all work on another student sheet so that I could see what we needed to review. Each day, I would post the new rankin

Adding & Subtracting Rational Expressions Drag & Drop

Because Math 3 now has drag & drop on the final exam, students need the practice. So, I created one using Google Slides. It went over really well! While this only took the students about 40-45 minutes to complete, it took me about 2 days to create this activity. Oh well, at least it is cute! :) I used Google Drawings to create the scene and took a screenshot of the drawing to post as the background in Google Slides. This worked so that students could only move the answers. I created this for an Honors class and one of the problems (#5 - the one pictured) really stumped the kiddos. I loved it! They kept thinking that x - 1 was not part of the common denominator...they didn't realize that they needed to simplify after subtracting. It really made them think! When they were finished, they shared it with me! I really think that this helped the kids get more practice on drag & drop while working on adding and subtracting rational expressions! Here is the ac

Exponential Growth & Decay Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger Hunts are always fun (and easy to grade). This particular one is all about applications of exponential growth & decay. My students seem to understand this topic really well, but I still wanted to provide more practice. When I did this hunt originally, I created the cards with the answer on the front and the question on the back. Once I figured out how to copy and make it work, it was great because I could use the cards over and over again. However, they started looking old, and I lost some of the cards. So t his year, I placed the answer and question on the front. It made it so much easier to copy! If you would like to try this in your class, here is a copy ! I included the solutions as well. UPDATE: I created this activity and transformed into a remote version. Remote Version: SE Scavenger Hunt TE Scavenger Hunt ~RJ

Girl Math

Search This Blog