Web Quest

Sandy O’Connell

Introduction:

Title: “SOH CAH TOA it to me!”

This unit will deal with finding sides and angles using the sine, cosine, and tangent functions. They will use the acronym SOH CAH TOA to understand the meanings. SOH means Sine opposite hypotenuse. CAH means cosine adjacent hypotenuse. TOA means tangent opposite adjacent. We will be working with 90-degree triangles and 60, 30, 90 triangles.

Task:

They will produce a poster with 5 triangles on it with many different angles and sides missing. They will use SOH CAH TOA to help them find the missing parts. All work will be shown and steps onto what they did will be expected to be on the poster as well. They will be creative as to how the poster is laid out and it must be in an organized fashion.

Process:

The students will get into groups of two and a sheet with the problems will be handed out. The students will:

1. Pick a partner.

2. Look at the problems handed out.

3. They will then solve the problems using SOH CAH TOA on a sheet of paper before transposing it onto poster board.

4. Once completed and approved by me, one partner will get a poster board from the library.

5. I will have markers and construction paper for them to use for their poster.

6. They will construct a poster board for display.

7. After the poster boards are completed they will then hang them on the walls.

8. The next day, they will have to show their poster board to the class.

Each student is responsible for all work done on the project and they will all be expected to know this information for upcoming quizzes and tests.

Resources:

http://www.themathlab.com/writings/short%20stories/sohcahtoa/overview.htm

http://junew0.tripod.com/july11/math/sohtahtoa.htm

http://id.mind.net/~zona/mmts/trigonometryRealms/introduction/rightTriangle/trigRightTriangle.html

Evaluation:

I will evaluate this project on 3 main parts: the mathematics, creativity, and group participation. I will have a rubric for the students so they know what is expected. The rubric may go as follows:

Mathematics

All correct: 50/50.

All problems are worth 10 points. (5 problems *10 pts=50 total pts.)

Creativity

Is it legible? 10 points

Is it neatly done? 10 points

Did they use color? 10 points

Participation

Was time evenly used between each partner? 5 points

Did each person do a portion of the math? i.e. did one do the math and the other the poster. 5 points

Total Points: 90 points

Conclusion:

I can conclude that we know how to find missing angles and sides in a triangle-using trigonometry. Working in pairs helped me to understand certain points that I was missing. Some stuff I knew better than my partner did so we helped eachother out. By doing this, I gained a much better understanding of this unit. The web sites helped us remember the acronym and it is much easier remembering that than words and definitions.