Thursday, September 29, 2011

Fractals

It's been kind of a weird week. Everything was going well and (fairly) normal until yesterday when I got a call after school that I needed to pick up my girl at her school.  Turns out their bus (which none of the kids were on yet, thank goodness) had been in an accident and wasn't drivable.  Something little, but it threw off my whole afernoon.

Today I got a call at school around 12:30 saying that my boy had fallen at recess (while going after a ball during his kickball game, I later found out) and hit a permanant tooth on the blacktop.  The tooth was bleeding and kind of loose and he was really upset.  I arranged for a sub for my last class and headed out. After a trip to Dairy Queen for a milkshake (he'd missed lunch!) we headed to the dentist to get it checked out. Nothing was obviously wrong but we were told to keep an eye on it. I'm just hoping it doesn't turn gray/black!

This year I'm on a quest to do fun/applicable/new stuff in precalc. I saw in my precalc book (which I've used for probably 9 years and never noticed before) a lesson on fractals and thought I'd give it a shot.  It took me a while to figure out how/what to do, but yesterday I decided to give google sites a shot.  Here's my first attempt - check it out to see what you think! I'm using it basically as a webquest - I set up different pages with information/videos/activities for the kids to complete and write their responses on a separate page.

Here's what I'm planning to give them:
Fractal

4 comments:

mccormickmath said...

I am planning to use some of your ideas here for a fractal project in my alg 2 w/ trig and precalc classes soon. I have a feeling I will learn a thing or two from your links.

Did you have an answer key? Did your students have a hard time with anything? Any suggestions now that you're done with it?

KFouss said...

I didn't have an answer key. Honestly, I didn't know all of the answers and most of my questions were opinion-type questions. I just wanted to give the kids an opportunity to do a little exploring.

The only trouble that my students had was getting the silly computers at school to work. Several of them ended up working on their phones because the computer wouldn't stay online. The only thing I may change for future use is making the worksheet more specific and making sure they know exactly what it is they're expected to do. But in general I was happy with the results and the kids learned and had a good time doing it!

If you find some things to add or make some changes, I'd love to know about them!

mccormickmath said...

I haven't been able to do the Fractal activity yet...student laptops are an issue.

I found one of your trig activities and my students claim they found a mistake. I told them I would work on it this weekend. It's in the Pre-Calculus Chapter 4...Radian Cut-ups. They think that 7pi/4 and should -315 degrees match up (they think the 7pi/4 should be negative). I noticed there is a positive 315 degrees as well as 7/8 revolution.

I am going to sit down and work on it this weekend, but if you already have an answer, you could save me some time.

I love your blog and your resources that you've shared!

Thanks!

Christy

KFouss said...

Christy -

I'd love to save you the time, but I can't. :( I don't think I've actually ever used the radian cut-ups; I found them somewhere. But I'd appreciate you letting me know if something needs to be fixed! :)

Kristen