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Showing posts with label Rational Functions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rational Functions. Show all posts

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Fences and Party Planning

While we catalog the year and review the basic component skills learned thus far, we are going to be doing extended investigations of rational expressions (in Precalc) and of quadratics (in Algebra II) in the contexts of design, projectile motion, and event planning.


Precalculus will be "Planning a Summer Camp" based on a College Board Springboard investigation with the following opening scenario:

"You have been appointed to the finance committee of a nonprofit summer camp for children.  The camp will be held in one-week sessions, beginning with breakfast on Monday morning and ending with dinner on Friday evening, each week throughout the summer.

The fixed cost for the camp, which includes rent, staff salaries, staff meals, and all equipment and materials for the recreational activities, will be $2400 per day.  Although the camp has dining facilities for the staff, ti must pay an outside vendor to provide all meals for the campers.  After contacting  a food service vendor, you learn that this additional cost will be $3 per camper, per meal.

As a nonprofit camp, the camp must cover it costs, but does not need to make a profit.  The finance committee does not know how much to charger for a week at the summer camp, so the director is requesting that the committee submit a proposal for setting the fee for reach camper based on the number of campers who are expected to attend each week."

Homework (from www.jmap.org; feel free to check your answers there!)



Algebra 2 will be working with a variety of area situations involving "Fences" and "Rockets in Flight" (the name of the Springboard investigation), which open as follows:

"You are employed by Fence Me In, a business that specializes in building fenced enclosures for both businesses and residences.  Your job is to build enclosures on your client's properties.  One client has purchased a certain length of fencing and wants to enclose the largest possible rectangular area in her yard." (Fences)

"Cooper is a model rocket enthusiast.  The model rockets in cooper's collection hve single engines and when launched can rise as high as 1000 feet depending upon the size of the engine.  After the engine is ignited, it will burn for 3-5 seconds and the rocket will accelerate upward.  Once the engine burns out, the rocket will be in free fall, because the only acceleration is due to gravity.  The rocket has a parachute that will open as the rocket begins to fall back to Earth.

Cooper decides to track one of his rockets, the Eagle, so that he can investigate its time and height while in flight.  He installs an altimeter into the nose of the Eagle.  The altimeter will record the time and the height of the rocket as it falls back to Earth and will be activated when the parachute opens.  The data for one flight of the Eagle is shown in the table below."

Homework (from www.jmap.org; feel free to check your answers there!)




Friday, May 6, 2011

Week 35

Algebra II will be doing some exploration of rational functions from The College Board. One is intended to review their prior knowledge of rational functions and apply it to solve a problem. The other is a review of polynomials applied to running a business and analyzing profit, revenue, and cost. I hope they enjoy it!! See the graph at right from the Rodale Institute explanation of effective pricing.

As promised, I have included a fourth quarter bonus project that allows interested students to get credit as well as learn some of the basics of computer programming using MIT's Scratch. Here is a on all aspects of the program as well as a wiki hosted by scratch that contains examples for blocks of code. Please find the project outline attached below. If you have any further questions just e-mail me!


Algebra II and Precalculus both have exams on Monday!!! Please take some time this weekend to prepare. Use the information on the blog from previous posts to help guide your studies.

Algebra II review packet:


The homework for this week is solving rational equations, which will help you review all the basic operations involved with rational expressions as well as solve them.


Precalculus is reviewing for finals and getting geared up for a strong finish. The link below are some self-practice tests on the topics we covered this year. There are alse paper and pencil tests that have keys as well if you don't want to stay online to take the web-based exams.

Practice Exams, 1
Practice Exams, 2
Practice Exams, 3

 Here are two previous exams from early in the year to start reviewing!

Friday, April 29, 2011

Week 34

Precalculus will be exploring the law of sines and cosines and working through the ever challenging "ambiguous case" for law of sines. To review trigonometry for the upcoming exam try this online set of tutorials and practice or this set of videos. Let me know if it helps!
Homework with odd answers:*

Bonus:
Khan Academy



Algebra II is moving from operations with rational expressions to solving rational equations. We will again apply all modalities to solve these equations: numeric, graphic, and algebraic. It is important to be able move between these modalities and use each to help you solve the more difficult problems.

Examples for Simplifying Complex Rational Expressions:


Videos of the Week:
Adding and Subtracting Rational Expressions 1
Adding and Subtracting Rational Expressions 2
Adding and Subtracting Rational Expressions 3
Solving Rational Equations 1
Solving Rational Equations 2
Solving Rational Equations 3

Reference Sheets:



Homework* with odd answers:



*Modified from University of Houston

Friday, April 15, 2011

Week 33

First and foremost, have a great Spring Break. I know I will.

Secondly, take this extended time to do some work on Khan Academy. It is an excellent tool for you to practice and prepare for finals. In addition, you can take your math skills to new heights and new topics. Enjoy.

Algebra II is moving into basic operations with rational functions. As always, the basics of multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction of fractions comes back to haunt us all. I think the reference sheet for this one could be of real help to keep you organized, focused, and always pointed in the right direction.






Reference Sheet:


Completed Notes on Adding and Subtracting Rational Expressions:


Operations with Rational Expressions Videos:
Multiplying and Dividing Rational Expressions 1
Multiplying and Dividing Rational Expressions 2
Multiplying and Dividing Rational Expressions 3
Adding and Subtracting Rational Expressions 1
Adding and Subtracting Rational Expressions 2
Adding and Subtracting Rational Expressions 3


Homework (with odd solutions):



Final Review Packets:



Precalculus will graph the other 4 trigonometric functions with all their pecularities and nuances. I highly recommend watching some of the videos I have posted below. Remember to pause and rewatch them to get a true idea of how these functions behave.

Cosecant Secant Cotangent




Graphing Trigonometric Functions Videos:
Graphs of Trig Functions
Graphing Trig Functions
More Trig Graphs
Determining an equation of a trig graph

Homework:


Final Review Packets:

Friday, April 8, 2011

Week 32

Algebra 2 finalizes their investigation and construction of the graphs of rational functions. It is absolutely essential to make the connection between the algebraic manipulations and understandings of these functions and their graphs. I will be away from school both Thursday and Friday of next week trying to learn how to better use the SmartBoard (you know I need that). Remember to take advantage of the exercise practice at www.khanacademy.org. Please find a rather complicated rational function below. The steps to graphing it can be found here.


Graphing Rational Functions Powerpoint:


Operations with Rational Expressions Guided Notes:



Reference Sheets:




Rational Function Videos:
Asymptotes of Rational Functions
Rational Function Example
Another Rational Function Example!


Homework with odd solutions:


Final Review Packets:



Precalculus is going to continue with sine and cosine functions in the attempt at mastering all the different transformations that result in changes in amplitude, vertical shift, phase shift and period. The change in one parameter, amplitude, is captured in the image below:


Applet:
Transformations of sine functions

Plotting a Sine or Cosine Wave

Khan Academy videos:
Graphs of trigonometric functions
More graphs of trig functions!

Precalculus Homework:


Final Review Packets:

Friday, April 1, 2011

Week 31

Fourth Quarter is now here. Your grade from the first three quarters cannot be changed--the only thing you can control, as a student, is your grade fourth quarter. Please, scholars, do thy best to finish strong. A great way to keep your basic skills up as we move through fourth quarter and prepare thyself for finals is to login at www.khanacademy.org and keep marching through the exercises.

*For Parents: I added an e-mail subscription to the sidebar so that you can receive an e-mail everytime the blog is updated. Just type your e-mail in and follow the steps that follow. It should take about 20 seconds.

Algebra II begins rational functions, which are graphically somewhat different than previous functions, but they nevertheless require a great deal of the skills we have been building all year. Factoring fun will remain a large part of our life. Here are two graphical examples of rational functions:


To explore the graphs of rational functions try this applet.

Videos:
Rational Expressions and Functions, part I
Rational Expressions and Functions, part II

Rational Functions Blank Note Guide and Graphing Powerpoint:



Reference Sheet:




Homework:


Saturday School:


Precalculus is ending the year with a bang. We are investigating the graphs of the six trigonometric functions and the unique types of behavior they can model. The coming week we will start with graphing sin(x), cos(x), and possibly tan(x). We will be relying on a curriculum that can be found online here. Here is a graph of sin(x):


File:Tan drawing process.gif


To explore transformations of sine functions try this applet.

Videos:
Trigonometry Videos

Homework:


Saturday School: