Have We Had Enough Snow Yet?  I'm ready for Spring!!!!!

Conference Letters will be coming home February 18th.  Please return them as soon as possible.

Conference will be March 4th and March 5th

My grade book closes on February 24th.

Integrated I

Students in Integrated I have finished their medicine carriers. All groups were very successful in designing a carrier that kept its contents cool and was protective enough to keep an eqq from breaking at 2 meters high, all while being cost efficient.  Ask them how they did it.

We have begun our next unit Amazon Mission: Outbreak.  This unit will focus on the exponential growth of the flu and how best to contain the virus given the probability of it spreading and the effectiveness of the different treatments.    

Integrated II

Did you ever wonder why bees build their honeycombs in the shape of hexagons?  Well that is exactly what we are trying to determine.  Students came up with 5 conjectures as to why and also brain stormed possible experiments to test the conjectures.  Students have tested and proven the first two conjectures and have been working on math skills necessary to prove the third.  They have been finding areas of different geometric figures and using the pythagorean theorem to help find the length of sides which are unknow.  The thing will be to use the Pythagorean Theorem to define the trigonometric functions of sine, cosine and tangent.

What we need to prove:

1.     No shape more than six sides can tessellate which eliminates wasted space in the honeycomb.

2.     Hexagon is the best way to divide a surface into regions of equal area with the least total perimeter.

3.     Hexagons provide the most space(area, volume) for a given perimeter

4.     Hexagons enclose the most amount of space with the least “amount of material” surface area.

Integrated III

Students in Integrated III have been solving a variety of linear programming problems.  They have encounter some problems with determining the exact coordinates of the feasible regions and are finding out how they can find that exact location using and solving sysmtems of equations.