Ellen Beccia

In this lesson, the students become aware that parabolas are identified not just in math books, but are modeled by real-life scenarios like curves formed in athletic events such as the pitch of a ball, or the path of a high jumper. They will model this, graph a parabola, and then using the steps, determine the equation of the parabola. It is also a good review for systems of equations. A scoring rubric is included.

This is a way for student to find the nth term of a quadratic using a systematic algorithm that they usually find (not only) less complicated than guess and check, but also fun. Many feel that it feels like they are solving a puzzle. They find first and second differences through a chart they fill in, and then create a second chart to use their findings and actually formulate the nth term statement.