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Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Teaching The Sine Graph
I still get requests for the file I used to teach the sine graph WAY back when in the days I taught precalculus (side note: I'll be teaching it again at my new school next year). This is an idea (I forgot where I heard/saw it from) that I wrote up. It involves string, spaghetti, and the worksheet. The kids use the string to wrap around a circle to mark off random angles/marks on the circle. They transfer this to the "linear" xy plane. Then at these angles, they measure the y value on the circle with the spaghetti and transfer that height over to the linear graph. Kids should have prior knowledge of radians, calculator/triangle practice with calculating sine (I forget what else....). Here's the file.
I wish I had seen this when I was teaching trig to seniors that could care less! This would have been fun and interesting and perhaps they would get into it! I'll save it for my precalc coworkers and if I ever teach this again (we are dropping Trig because there were only 10 people that signed up for it this year! :X )
ReplyDeleteI have done this activity before on huge sheets of butcher paper. The students love it! I am glad to find a smaller version now though too!
ReplyDeleteI have done this one, too. Make sure you give them a large enough paper to fit the string all on one side! These look lovely pinned together to make a continuous sine curve across the wall, though.
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