3 Act Task

Today I was invited into a colleague’s grade 9 math class for a 3 act task that we led together. 3 act tasks start with act 1 to pique the interest. Students watch the video and write down what they notice and wonder.

Next comes Act 2, where more information is shared, and students use the information to solve a problem.

In this case we are figuring out how long it takes for the candle to burn out fully. Students use the data, in tables, and graphs and use logic to attempt to solve the problem.

This class has recently been working on scatter plots, so we encouraged a graphical representation to solve. Sometimes this can be done by loudly praising the graphical representation of one group, and others will latch onto that methodology. We worked on making sure axes were well scaled, and had labels, and then groups realized that they’d need to extend the trend a bit through extrapolation and a line of best fit. Some groups needed to extend beyond their graph!

One group didn’t want to scale their axis in a conventional way. We worked with them to see how their graph could still help them solve the problem.

In the end, when all groups had sorted through their responses, we consolidated their work, pointing out excellent communication, and including vocabulary about trends that they’d been using recently. At the end of class we watched the final act video which revealed the conclusion.

This task shows the use of a graph and extrapolation to solve, which made it a great fit for the recent topics.

I look forward to working with this class again soon!