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Geometry

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
Standards 2000

URL: http://standards.nctm.org/document/chapter6/geom.htm

For all grades, NCTM standards focus on students being able to: "analyze characteristics and properties of two- and three-dimensional geometric shapes and develop mathematical arguments about geometric relationships; specify locations and describe spatial relationships using coordinate geometry and other representational systems; apply transformations and use symmetry to analyze mathematical situations; use visualization, spatial reasoning, and geometric modeling to solve problems "

In grades 6–8 all students should—

understand relationships among the angles, side lengths, perimeters, areas, and volumes of similar objects;
create and critique inductive and deductive arguments concerning geometric ideas and relationships, such as congruence, similarity, and the Pythagorean relationship;
draw geometric objects with specified properties, such as side lengths or angle measures;
use two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional objects to visualize and solve problems such as those involving surface area and volume;
use geometric models to represent and explain numerical and algebraic relationships.

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Related Problems of the Week include:
Pi Machine, In the Dark with an Elephant

Pi Machine 1-IV


(click on image for larger view)

 

The Problem: Students approximate pi by estimating the ratio of darts, thrown randomly at a dartboard, that land inside the circle to those that land outside.

Where's the Math: Investigations explore the relationship between radius and area in circles and spheres.

NCTM Standards:
Geometry, measurement, number & operations

Components: AgentSheets, logoscript, HTML viewer, text editor, swing slider, simple number table, number entry

Pi Machine 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Click on the links above to learn more about the problem series, the math involved, sample solutions, and developers' assessment

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In the Dark with an Elephant


(click on image for larger view)

 

The Problem: Students investigate how the appearance of a graph changes, based on the scale of the graph and the region being viewed.

Where's the Math: This problem gives students experience in manipulating graphs by changing domain and range values for the viewing window, which can easily be carried over to more powerful tools such as graphing calculators. It also allows students to become familiar with the Cartesian coordinate system. The questions encourage thought about how the shape of specific areas of a graph are not necessarily representative of the shape of the entire graph.

NCTM Standards:
Algebra, geometry

Components: SimCalc, ImageView, FunctionEntry, NumberEntry, Data Recorder, Standard Swing components (buttons and labels)

Learn more about the problem, the math involved, sample solutions, and developers' assessment

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