Lesson Summary
This geometry lesson allows gifted middle and high school students to explore triangle midsegments, use them to solve real-world problems with the aid of geometry software, and make conjectures about the properties of shapes, angles, and segments created by triangle midsegments. After some introductory exercises, students will be tasked with this challenge:
The local elementary school wants to use the high school’s parking lot for their carnival, and many children will be disappointed if we can’t use the space. They will need a parking lot which is at least 500 feet long due to a county regulation to be able to accompany certain number of visitors to their event. Is our parking lot big enough? Also know that the school’s blueprints are missing the length of the parking lot and you are supposed to find a way, using GeoGebra, Google Earth, and scientific methods to accurately calculate that distance as correctly as possible. Unfortunately, that area is off campus so you are not allowed to go out there to take measurements. That is why you must find a geometrical calculation method to do just that.
How do you challenge students to dig deeper and speculate about the properties of triangle midsegments?
How do you use real-world scenarios in Geometry class?
- Time: 150 minutes
- Duke TIP Triangle Midsegments Lesson Plan
- Duke TIP Triangle Midsegments Handout
- Supplies:
- Teacher access to a projector and a laptop with the GeoGebra program (visit website or download the app from iTunes) and wi-fi connection to access Google Maps satellite view.
- Student access to a laptop, an iPad or a Smartphone with the GeoGebra app, and wi-fi connection to access Google Maps satellite view.
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