At the very start of the school year in geometry, we started by having students make observations and write down conjectures based on their observations. We had a very fruitful paper folding activity, which students — through perseverance and a lot of conversation with each other — eventually were able to explain.

However we also gave out the following:

And students made the conjecture that you will always get a right angle, no matter where you put the point. But when they tried explaining it with what they knew (remember this was on the first or second day of class), they quickly found out they had some trouble. So we had to leave our conjecture as just that… a conjecture.

However I realized that by now, students can deductively prove that conjecture in two different ways: algebraically and geometrically.

Background:

My kids have proved* that if you have two lines with opposite reciprocal slopes, the lines must be perpendicular (conjecture, proof assignment).
My kids have derived the equation for a circle from first principles.
My kids have proved the theorem that the inscribed angle in a circle has half the measure of the central angle (if both subtend the same arc) [see Problem #10]

Two Proofs of the Conjecture: 

Now to be completely honest, this isn’t exactly how I’d normally go about this. If I had my way, I’d give kids a giant whiteboard and tell ’em to prove the conjecture we made at the start of the year. The two problems with this are: (1) I doubt my kids would go to the algebraic proof (they avoid algebraic proofs!), and part of what I really want my kids to see is that we can get at this proof in multiple ways, and (2) I only have about 20-25 minutes to spare. We have so much we need to do!

With that in mind, I crafted the worksheet above. It’s going to be done in three parts.

Warm Up on Day 1: Students will spend 5 minutes refreshing their memory of the equation of a circle and how to derive it (page 1).

Warm Up on Day 2: Students will work in their groups for 8-10 minutes doing the geometric proof (page 2).

Warm Up on Day 3: Students will spend 5-8 minutes working on the algebraic proof (page 3). Once they get the slopes, we together will go through the algebra of showing the slopes as opposite reciprocals of each other as a class. It will be very guided instruction.

Possible follow-up assignment: Could we generalize the algebraic proof to a circle centered at the origin with any radius? What about radius 3? What about radius R? Work out the algebra confirming the our proof still holds.

Special Note:

Once we prove the Pythagorean theorem (right now we’re letting kids use it because they’ve learned it before… but we wanted to hold off on proving it) and the converse, we can use the converse to have a third proof that we have a right angle. We can show (algebraically) that the square of one side length (the diameter of the semi-circle) has the same value as the sum of the squares of the other two sides lengths of the triangle. Thus, we must have a right angle opposite the diameter!

I’m sure there are a zillion other ways to prove it. I’m just excited to have my kids see that something that was so simply observed but was impossible to explain at the start of the year can yield its mysteries based on what they know now.

The two semi-circle conjecture documents in .docx form: 2014-09-15 A Conjecture about Semicircles 2015-03-30 A Conjecture about Semicircles, Part II

*Well, okay, maybe not proved, since they worked it out for only one specific case… But this was at the start of the year, and their argument was generalizable.

I’ve been mulling over how to introduce trigonometry to my geometry students. I think I’ve finally figured out a way that is going to be conceptually deep, and will have kids see the need for the ratios.

I don’t know if all of what I’m about to throw down here will make sense upon first glance or by skimming. I have a feeling that the flow of the unit, and where each key moment of understanding lies, all comes from actually working through the problems.

But yeah, here’s the general flow of things:

Kids see that all right triangles in the world can be categorized into certain similarity classes… like a right triangle with a 32 degree angle are similar to any other right triangle with a 32 degree angle. So we can exploit that by having a book which provides us with all right triangles with various angle measures and side lengths. (A page from this book is copied on the right.) Using similarity and this book of triangles, we can answer two key questions. (1) Given an angle and a side length of a right triangle, we can find all the other side lengths. (2) Given two side lengths of a right triangle, we can find an angle.

By answering these questions (especially the second question), kids start to see how important ratios of sides are. So we convert our book of right triangles into a table of ratios of sides of right triangles. Students then solve the same problems they previously solved with the book of triangles, but using this table of values.

Finally, students are given names for these ratios — sine, cosine, and tangent. And they learn that their calculator has these table of ratios built into it. And so they can use their calculator to quickly look up what they need in the table, without having the table in front of them. Huzzah! And again, students solve the same problems they previously solved with the book of triangles and the table of values, but with their calculators.

Hopefully throughout the entire process, they are understanding the geometric understanding to trigonometry.

(My documents in .docx form are here: 2015-04-xx Similar Right Triangles 1 … 2015-04-xx Similar Right Triangles 2 … 2015-04-xx Similar Right Triangles 2.5 Do Now … 2015-04-xx Similar Right Triangles 3 … 2015-04-xx Similar Right Triangles 4)

It’s a long post, so there’s much more below the jump…

(more…)

In Geometry, we’re about to embark on the whole triangle congruence bit (SSS, SAS, ASA, etc.).  Below is the plan we have outlined.

The TL;DR version: By learning about angle bisectors, we motivate the need for triangle congruence. We have students figure out when they have enough information to show two triangles are congruent. They use this newfound knowledge of triangle congruence to prove basic things they know are true about quadrilaterals, but have yet to prove that they are true. Finally, we return back to angle bisectors, and show that for any triangle, the three angle bisectors always meet at a point. As a cherry on the top of the cake, we do an activity involving salt to illustrate this point.

***

STEP 1: To motivate the need to figure out when we can say two triangles are congruent when we have limited information, we are showing a problem where triangle congruence is necessary to make an obvious conclusion. 

We’re going to see the need for triangle congruence to show that:

any point that is equidistant to an angle (more precisely: the two rays that form an angle) lies on the angle bisector of that angle.

This will be an obvious fact for students once they create a few examples. But when they try to prove it deductively, they’ll hit a snag. They’ll get to the figure on the left, below. But in order to show the congruent angles, they’ll really want to say “the two triangles are congruent.” But they don’t have any rationale to make that conclusion.

Hence: our investigation in what we need in order to conclude two triangles are congruent.

When kids do this, they will also be asked to draw a bunch of circles tangent to the angles. All these centers are on the angle bisector of the angle. This will come up again at the end of our unit.

Kids will be doing all of this introductory material on this packet (.docx)

STEP 2: Students discover what is necessary to state triangle congruence.

This is a pretty traditional introduction to triangle congruence. Students have to figure out if they can draw only one triangle with given information — or multiple triangles.

We’re going to pull this together as a class, and talk about why ASA and SAS and SSS must yield triangle congruence — and we’ll do this when we talk about how we construct these triangles. When you have ASA, SAS, SSS, you are forced to have only a single triangle.

I anticipate drawing the triangles in groups, and pulling all this information together as a class, is going to be conversation rich.

The pages we’re going to be using are below (.docx) [slight error: in #4, the triangle has lengths of 5 cms, 6 cms, and 7 cms]

STEP 3: Once we have triangle congruence, we’re going to use triangle congruence to prove all sorts of properties of quadrilaterals.

Specifically, they are going to draw in diagonals in various quadrilaterals, which will create lots of different congruent triangles. From this, they will be asked to determine:

(a) Can they say anything about the relationship between one diagonal and the other diagonal (e.g. the diagonals bisect each other; the diagonals always meet at right angles)

(b) Can they say anything about the relationship between the diagonals and the quadrilateral (e.g. one diagonal bisects the two angles)

(c) Can they conclude anything about the quadrilateral itself (e.g. the opposite sides are congruent; opposite angles are congruent)

We have a few ideas percolating about how to have students investigate and present their findings, but nothing ready to share yet. The best idea we have right now is to have students use color to illustrate their conclusions visually, like this:

STEP 4: This is a throwback to the very start of the unit. Students will prove that in any triangle, the angle bisectors will always meet at a single point.

Here are the guiding questions (.docx)

And we will finish this off by highlighting the circles we drew at the start of the unit. Notice we have a single circle that is tangent to all three sides of the triangle. The center of that circle? Where the angle bisectors meet. Why? You just proved it! That location is equidistant to all three sides of the triangle.

STEP 5: The reason we’re highlighting these circles is that we’re going to be cutting out various triangles (and other geometric shapes) out of cardboard, elevate them, and then pour salt on them. Ridges will form. These ridges will be angle bisectors. Why? Because each time you pour salt on something flat, it forms a cone. The top of the cone will the the center of the circle. We’re just superimposing a whole bunch of salt cones together to form the ridges.

The other geometry teacher and I both saw this salt activity at the Exeter conference years ago. Here are some images from a short paper from Troy Stein (who is awesome) on this:

The general idea for this activity is going to be: kids take a guess as to where the ridges are going to be, kids pour the salt and see where the ridges are.

As the figures get more complex, they should start thinking more deeply. For example, in the quadrilateral figure above, why do you get that long ridge in the middle?

My hope is that they start to visualize the figures that they are pouring salt on as filled with little cones, like this:

The material I’ve whipped up for this is here (.docx):