Ms. Bearse's Site

We’re figuring out the slope of the stairs and the railing in the main foyer.     

And we’re comparing the slope to that of the Earl Street stairs.    

We used rise over run, and also the desmos app to calculate.   

we went for a walk and saw some steep rooves.  Some are steeper than others.  Import the photos into desmos and match a line to the roof you’re checking.  We used y=mx+b then used sliders to adjust the m and the b.  The greater the m value, the steeper the slope.       

grade 10s looked at desmos.com today to investigate parabolas in the form y=a(x-h)^2+k (note, the little ^2 is the oldschool way to show someing as squared)

We changed values of h and k to move the graph around, and we changed the a value to change the shape of the graph.

We took images of the water fountain and matched the water’s arch with a parabola. 

We looked for neat real world parabola pictures online and matched the images with parabolas. 

We cant stop seeing parabolas! 

We’ve got an experiment going in class. We are going to grow creatures.  We put them in water and they’ll grow 600%!

We measured our creatures first, and then put them in water. 

We look forward to watching them grow! 

Today was Ali’s last class with us.  We learned about civil engineering today.  We built towers with a limited number of straws, pipe cleaners, and tape.  They had to hold up marbles, in the top 20% of the tower.  There were lots of different approaches to the challenge.  We practiced good teamwork and the design process.  We tested and changed our designs several times.

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 The beans are emerging, and growing fast.  

We’re measuring them each day.   

It’s fun to watch the daily changes like the leaves unfurling.  They will sure look different on Monday!

Alex, a carpenter, came to our class today to talk to us about the  math he uses when doing his job

He showed us about making a 90 degree angle using 3-4-5 triangles, and how to use a chalk line.

He shared a lot of life lessons with us that went far beyond math class.  



the beans have germinated!  Those that grew in the dark were really big.

We planted them in soil and we’ll measure them daily.

We are calculating how long it would take to empty the water from the bucket to simulate emptying an oil well.  There were two different cups, a large one that could be used once a month, and a small one that could be used four times a month.

The problem was solved using volume calculations, and rate calculations

Later we designed a better scoop that maximizes the volume and minimizes the surface area.

We’re looking at balance points today.  For rectangular objects, it’s pretty easy to find the center.

For triangles it’s harder.  We need to find the intersection of the medians.