There are so many moving parts when it comes to projectile motion (no pun intended!) Students need to both interpret the word problems as well as know how to use their graphing calculators.
My students can struggle with all of this, so I made them this projectile motion template. There are spaces for the given equation, initial height, a good graphing calculator window, time to reach max height, max height and total time in air. We use the template for warm-ups and as quick checks for understanding.
I also made a set of Powerpoint slides with word problems that I shine on the board. When students start to struggle with finding a good window for viewing the entire parabola, I walk them through these steps:
First, try ZOOM 6.
If that doesn't work...
Ymax:
Try 10, then 100, then 1000, then 10000, then 15000, then 20000 until you see the top.
Xmax:
Try 10, then 20, then 50, then 100, then 200 until you see the right zero.
During warm-ups, when students start to finish I will ask for a volunteer to put their template under our document camera. We then go over the answers. If I am giving the template as a check for understanding, I collect them and award a point for each correct answer.
I wrote more about the activities we do during our quadratics unit in the post Fun With Quadratics.
You can find the projectile motion template here.
During warm-ups, when students start to finish I will ask for a volunteer to put their template under our document camera. We then go over the answers. If I am giving the template as a check for understanding, I collect them and award a point for each correct answer.
I wrote more about the activities we do during our quadratics unit in the post Fun With Quadratics.
You can find the projectile motion template here.
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