The purpose of this activity is to engage students in using the order of operations and knowledge of squares, cubes and roots, to solve a problem.
This activity assumes the students have experience in the following areas:
The problem is sufficiently open ended to allow the students freedom of choice in their approach. It may be scaffolded with guidance that leads to a solution, and/or the students might be given the opportunity to solve the problem independently.
The example responses at the end of the resource give an indication of the kind of response to expect from students who approach the problem in particular ways.
Task: The game of mah jong requires the players to make up hands that have names such as 'a run, a pung and a pair'. As a mathematical equivalent, can you make up the first ten natural (counting) numbers from a cube, a square and a root?
The following prompts illustrate how this activity can be structured around the phases of the Mathematics Investigation Cycle.
Introduce the problem. Allow students time to read it and discuss in pairs or small groups.
Discuss ideas about how to solve the problem. Emphasise that, in the planning phase, you want students to say how they would solve the problem, not to actually solve it.
Allow students time to work through their strategy and find a solution to the problem.
Allow students time to check their answers and then either have them pair share with other groups or ask for volunteers to share their solution with the class.
The student creates expressions for each of the numbers 1 through to 10, by combining cubes, squares and roots. The student employs an approach of 'guess and check' to form and to amend solutions.
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The student creates expressions for each of the numbers 1 through to 10, by combining cubes, squares and roots and explains their strategy or strategies.
Printed from https://meaningfulmaths.nt.edu.au/mmws/nz/resource/it-sounds-mah-jong at 8:53pm on the 26th February 2024