Mathematical goals

This lesson unit is intended to help you assess how well students are able to:

• Use the area of right triangles to deduce the areas of other shapes.
• Use dissection methods for finding areas.
• Organize an investigation systematically and collect data.
• Deduce a generalizable method for finding lengths and areas (The Pythagorean Theorem.)

Introduction       

The lesson is structured in the following way:

• Before the lesson, students attempt a task individually. You review their work and create questions for students to answer in order to improve their solutions.
• A whole-class introduction poses the problem of finding the areas of ‘tilted squares’ drawn on a square grid. Students share different approaches for calculating areas and are offered three generalizable methods that they might use. Students are asked to find possible areas of ‘tilted squares’ at a specific tilt. This requires a systematic approach.
• In a whole-class discussion results are shared and organized. The method is generalized into the Pythagorean theorem.
• Finally, students work individually on a new assessment task.

Materials required

• Each student will need a copy of the task sheets Square Areas, Tilted Squares, Proving the Pythagorean Theorem, Square Areas (revisited), and multiple copies of the Dotted Grid Paper (on demand).
• Each small group of students will need copies of the sheet Some Different Approaches.
• There are projector resources to help introduce activities and support whole-class discussions.

Time needed

20 minutes before the lesson, an 80-minute lesson (or two 40-minute lessons), and 20 minutes in a follow-up lesson (or for homework.) Timings given are only approximate. Exact timings will depend on the needs of your class.