How many cups will need to be stacked to reach Mrs Sharman’s height?

Mrs Sharman’s Year 8 Math Students have been using algebraic thinking to determine how many cups will need to be stacked to get to Mrs Sharman’s height. Students measured Mrs Sharman’s height to be 163 cm. Estimates they decided would be too low were 20 cups, too high would be 400 cups. They then measured the dimensions of the cup. Here is what they noticed.

Students are now using tables, graphs and algebraic equations to calculate how many cups will be needed. What do you think? How many cups would it take to reach Mrs Sharman’s height?

Linear equations are used anywhere a number increases or decreases consistently to make a graph of a straight line. They follow the formula y=mx+c. This can include phone bills, wages, speed, distance and more.  Where do you use linear equations in your job? We would love to know. Please send Mrs Sharman an email: Alana.Sharman550@schools.edu.au

Mrs Sharman and Ms Schubert have also been learning more about hands on authentic maths learning through Thinking Maths: Junior Secondary and students have been enjoying the activities from this training.  Here are some key take away points:

• The habits that make someone an expert in any field such as being creative, thinking critically, being reflective, solving problems, trying new things are the same habits that allow for good math learning.
• Visual representations are important for learning maths. This can be drawing images, using tiles or lego, drawing a graph, creating a table.  There are multiple ways of solving a problem.
• Before trying to solve a problem, try to estimate an answer that would be too low and one that would be too high.

Numeracy Intervention students travelled to Foodland to learn about percentage discounts. They have also been using training from Thinking Maths to solve multiplication problems in many visual ways.

Year 12 Methods students have been creating rollercoaster designs using DESMOS to demonstrate their learning of calculus. Here is an example by Robert Tiller.

Year 9 Students have been enjoying the sunshine by using clinometers and trigonometric ratios to measure the height of trees, netball rings, football goal posts and the STEM building.

Lots of fun is to be had in Maths!

Alana Sharman