Soaring away with slope
This activity will help middle school students gain a better understanding of functions and linear relationships. Through this hands-on activity involving balloons, the students will gain a better understanding of the relationship between independent and dependent variables, as well as the meaning of slope as the rate of change.
Reflection on hands-on learning
Hands-on learning is a vital part of mathematics instruction at any level of education. In the elementary grades, manipulatives are very important upon introducing new topics. They allow students to gain a concrete understanding of the concept before thinking about it in a more abstract way. As students move on to upper-level math in middle and high school, hands-on activities continue to provide valuable learning experiences, especially when learning new concepts. This activity is valuable for 8th grade students, because according to the common core standards, this is the first grade in which students are expected to work with functions in order to model linear relationships. Through this activity, the students will learn how to model real-life data in a scatterplot, draw a line of best fit, and find the equation of the line. The students will also review other middle school math concepts including circumference, volume, and surface area of a sphere. Hands-on activities are more engaging for students than simply giving a worksheet. They are very valuable in motivating students to not only understand, but enjoy math and relate it to the real world.