The purpose of this activity is to engage students in using compass directions and compass constructions to solve a location 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.
Arthur, Betty and Charlotte are all at school, in different rooms, successfully using their friend Darren’s WiFi hotspot from his phone.
Arthur and Betty can connect within 50m of Darren’s phone, but Charlotte’s phone can manage 80m.
The map of the school, below, shows where Arthur, Betty and Charlotte are at the moment.
Darren is due East of Arthur who is in room 3.
Betty is in room 13 and Charlotte, in room 11 is Northeast of Darren.
Where is Darren?
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 uses compass directions and compass constructions to solve a problem.
Click on the image to enlarge it. Click again to close.
The student uses compass directions and compass constructions to solve a problem within context.
Printed from https://meaningfulmaths.nt.edu.au/mmws/nz/resource/where-s-wifi at 8:52pm on the 26th February 2024