Citrus Week (Day 1 and 2)

In MAT1L this week students have been investigating citrus fruits. There are 5 teams, each with a different fruit to explore.

On Day 1 students did a lot of work with estimating and measuring the whole fruit. Groups named their fruit, and drew faces so we know how to orient them when we take measurements.

We estimated and measured dimensions (length, width and height) in inches and cm, we estimated and measured the weight. We estimated and measured the volume in cups and in mL. We used a displacement tank to find out the volume. Here is Gerold the orange having a bath in the displacement tank.

Next we peeled the fruit, and looked at how many circles the peel would fill in. We made circles the same size as the original fruit. It’s pretty cool that the peel will fill 4 circles. The surface area of a sphere is 4(pi)(r^2) which is 4 times the area of a circle with the same radius.

We estimated and measured the thickness of the skin, and the dimensions of the peeled fruit. Then we measured the volume of the peeled fruit.

We will continue exploring as citrus week proceeds! We’ll be looking at the number of segments, and seeds, and then finally juicing the fruit.