Hardcore Hardball

Teacher Does

Student Does

Ongoing Evaluation

Engage:

“We will be working in groups of 3 or 4 students tomorrow. Each group is going to perform an experiment called "The Ball Toss". The purpose of this activity is to allow us to see a visual representation of quadratics.”

To do this activity, each group will be given one Texas Instruments TI-82 graphing calculator. You will also receive something called a CBL, which stands for Calculator Based Laboratory. In addition, each group will receive on basketball, a motion detector, and some links to hook all of this up!

We will need a lot of cooperation and patience with one another to get this done right. Each group will need to do several things, I suggest choosing someone in the group for each part of the activity.

Listens to directions.

Where do we find quadratics in baseball?

Explore:

Give the directions.

“You will need someone to operate the calculator--The Recorder”

“Someone to throw and catch the basketball--The Tosser”

“And someone to be in charge of the CBL-----The Trigger Person”

“After I show everyone how to hook up the equipment, and explain the steps to begin our experiment, I will let you go to work!”

“We are going to put the motion detector, which is linked to the CBL and the graphing calculator on the floor. You will then activate the equipment (as I will explain). When the motion detector begins to make a clicking sound it is activated. The ball tosser who will be holding the ball (very still) directly above the detector, will toss the ball as straight as possible, and will then catch the ball before it falls to the floor or crushes the motion detector.”

(Be certain to avoid dropping the ball on the motion detector).

The calculator will actually graph the motion of the tossed ball. (Assuming the toss was a good one). The better your tosses become, the closer your graphs will come to looking parabolic...

Monitor each group.

Students will perform the activity several times, perhaps trading positions.

Students will work on handout (at end of lesson plan) while doing the activity

Are my students more interested, now that they have a sense of real life applications or representations of quadratics?

Observe how the students work together--goofing off, respectful, social etc.

Are the students comfortable with their roles?--Do they switch roles?

Explain:

“Unlike the linear functions you have studied in the past, the graphs of quadratic functions form parabolas and hyperbolas.”

The teacher will define hyperbola and parabola and give examples of each.

Students listen to explanation.

How does a quadratic function differ from a linear function in both algebraic and graphical appearance?

Extend/Ellaborate:

Ask students to try and make graphs that open in the opposite direction and that are also shifted to the right and left.

Students use motion detectors to explore shifts in quadratics.

What did you do to create a graph that was the opposite of the ones you found previously?  Why does the graph look this way?  How can we shift the graph?

Evaluate:

Ask students to describe a quadratic and how they made on with the motion detectors.

Have students fill out and turn in the worksheet provided below.

Students answer questions on handout.

See questions in handout below.