Right Triangle Trig: Scavenger Hunt

SOHCAHTOA... so many ways to teach our students to remember this. Personally, I've never been comfortable with the "hippie" story and I know there are others (here is a site dedicated to mnemonics) out there like this story of the Legend. But luckily, RJ and I teach Pre-Calculus so the kiddos come to us (hopefully) already knowing the basics - we get to take their knowledge and turn it into application!

For this activity, we pulled together 12 of our favorite right triangle application problems - some we made up and others have been around for ages. We put answers on one side and the questions on the other. We even put the questions upside-down so that the students could just flip the card up and not have to take it off the wall. The cherubs are in groups of 3 and begin at any numbered card. They flip the card, complete the task, and then find the numbered card with that answer. Repeat.

As with all classroom scavenger hunts, there are many pros!

Students are engaged
Students are taking control of their learning
Students get immediate feedback since they know right away if they have a correct (or incorrect) answer
Student-led discourse is way more meaningful than teacher-led discussion
Teachers get their steps in walking around

Of course there are drawbacks...

Creating activities can be time consuming
Teachers cannot just do one activity a year and expect the students to handle themselves appropriately
It was very confusing trying to make upside-down copies on the back. I'm embarrassed to admit that it took several trials/prints.

Here is a copy of our Triangle Trig Scavenger Hunt. Enjoy!

~SSB and RJ

Comments

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

Clue: Applications of Law of Sines/Cosines

A CRIME HAS BEEN COMMITTED - and my students are the detectives in this game of Clue. Since I don't give homework and practice is important - I try to find interesting formative assessments. Clue is perfect for this! I hang all of the cards on the wall, and students must walk around answering multiple questions. Each answer corresponds to a name, weapon, or location. Once they get an answer - that suspect, weapon, or location has been eliminated. When they are finished with all stations, the blanks should reveal the who, where, and what. While I make my kids show all work, this activity allows me to quickly evaluate if students comprehend the material. The students also enjoy figuring out who dunnit. In the past, the suspects were real teachers at my school, but then they would leave, and I had to change the names again and again. This time, I just went with generic names - but I think that the students were more involved when I used teachers that they knew. ...

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!...

Girl Math

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