The project "Measuring Your World" came from another project we already did. We dove into the world of area, volume, and everything about triangles. At the beginning of the project we focused on the solving for lengths and angles in triangles. To do this, we used sin, cosine, tangent, and the Pythagorean theorem. Once we felt more confident with that, we moved onto finding the area of many different shapes such as, squares, rectangles, triangles, and many sided polygons. After area, we started finding the volume of many different shapes as well. We started solving for the area of a cylinder, and after we got a deeper understanding of that we created a mini project to focus on solving math for any item you wanted.
Design Your Own Project:
Description-
We were assigned to create a mini project for ourselves. We (with a partner) could choose any place or item, and find the area or volume of it. Once we found the volume or area of our items, we were told to create a presentation to share our findings to the class. My partner and I chose to find the volume of an 11 inch pizza.
Math Content and Solution-
First, we found the equation for volume of a cylinder and used a plug in approach. I solved first for the inside part of that pizza, without the crust and then for the crust. I took the crust and acted as if I made a cut through it, and rolled it out so it was a long cylinder, instead of a circle. All the dimensions were all in inches and the finial answer is cubic inches.
Reflection-
This project helped me understand volume to on a new level and I was very glad that we had freedom during this project. I believe that choosing the item in this part, helped me get a much deeper understanding. Getting to do this showed me that there is truly math in everything and the math we are learning can relate to outside school in a very significant way. During this project, a strength of mine was definitely the habit of a mathematician starting small. I took the whole pizza and broke it down into different parts, so it was easier to solve for. I think this helped me in the long run of the problem because by breaking it down I was able to see it another way and figured out how to solve it quite fast. If I redid this project, I wish I would have spent more time creating a product, because we looked very unprepared with what we used, even though it helped us a lot.
Overall Reflection:
At the beginning of the unit, I was very worried that everything we learned would be review for me. That was the case in the beginning but I ended up learning more than I imagined learning. Everything I learned was related to how it will be needed in my future (especially through college and SATs). Realizing that I will need this information in the future helped me focus in class and care more about the subject. I was very surprised because I was going a lot faster paced then the other students (in the beginning) so I started taking the challenge options in class. Using the habit of a mathematician Stay Organized I turned all my worksheets in on time and never lost a paper. We had to keep 7-13 different papers together at a time and turn them all in at the end. If you lost a worksheet, you would have to redo the math to get a full grade. I am very glad to have used stay organized during this problem. I also used the habit of a mathematician start small because of all the worksheets we completed. We first had to learned how to solve Area for a 5 sided polygon, and then worked our way up to a 12 sided polygon. I am very glad we started small because I got a much better understanding of the topic. Overall, I was very proud of the amount I learned during this project.