Rolling for triangles (spaghetti lesson)

[Sharma]

Standards
Students know and are able to use the Triangle Inequality Theorem

Materials
Triangle Inequality Activity Sheet
Multi-sided Dice
Rulers
Spaghetti

Teacher Directions

Activity Sheet
Pass out the dice and spaghetti pieces
Set up the tables/chairs in groups of 4, with students facing each other.
Have students work on the activity sheet using spaghetti pieces.
Have group present the conclusions to the questions on the activity sheet.
Note that the last problem on the sheet does not specify which is larger x or y. So you may want to hold a discussion about writing this in absolute value form.

Playing the Game
Go over the directions to the game below
Choose a volunteer to play the game with you as a demonstration

Students are in teams of 2, playing against another team of two.
They roll 3 dice as many times as they can counting each time that they have rolled the sides that make a triangle for 1 minute. The winning team moves up and the non-winning team moves down. Continue to play “round robin” style for 10-15 minutes.

Variations of the Game
Students have to roll certain triangles (acute, obtuse, right) depending on the card that is drawn.
Right triangles must be shown using the Pythagorean Theorem.

(see attachments below for doc of the above lesson, and for the worksheet)

Attachments:

1. Rolling-for-Triangles.doc
2. Triangle-Inequality.doc

[Author]

Posts