Collecting the rays
http://illuminations.nctm.org/LessonDetail.aspx?ID=L240
A lesson plan for grades 7–8 Mathematics
In this lesson, students explore how variations in solar collectors affect the energy absorbed. They make rectangular prisms that have the same volume but different linear dimensions. Students investigate relationships among the linear dimensions, the area, and the volume of rectangular prisms. Illuminations provides detailed instructions for completing the lesson.
Students will:
- Develop spatial sense.
- Explore linear dimensions, area, volume, time, and temperature.
- Relate geometric ideas to number and measurement ideas.
- Recognize and appreciate geometry in the world.
NCTM Standards and Expectations:
- Represent the idea of a variable as an unknown quantity using a letter or a symbol.
- Understand such attributes as length, area, weight, volume, and size of angle and select the appropriate type of unit for measuring each attribute.
- Describe classes of numbers according to characteristics such as the nature of their factors.
- Understand various meanings of multiplication and division.
- Understand the effects of multiplying and dividing whole numbers.
- Identify and use relationships between operations, such as division as the inverse of multiplication, to solve problems.
North Carolina Curriculum Alignment
Mathematics (2004)
Grade 7
- Goal 2: Measurement - The learner will understand and use measurement involving two- and three-dimensional figures.
- Objective 2.02: Solve problems involving volume and surface area of cylinders, prisms, and composite shapes.
Grade 8
- Goal 2: Measurement - The learner will understand and use measurement concepts.
- Objective 2.01: Determine the effect on perimeter, area or volume when one or more dimensions of two- and three-dimensional figures are changed.
