Activity Overview
Students use formulas to find the differences of the consecutive terms, plot a scatter plot of each sequence, and determine that sequences with common differences (called arithmetic sequences) have scatter plots whose points form a straight line.
Objectives
- Students will explore arithmetic sequences and series.
- Students will consider the effect of the value for the common difference and first term using Lists and sum commands.
- Students will graphically analyze the arithmetic sequences using graphs.
About the Lesson
This activity is done with the use of the TI-84 family as an aid to the problems, specifically using Lists to input and generate sequences and the sum command to find a series. This activity serves as a nice introduction to arithmetic series.
*Note: This activity includes optional IB support, including IB Questions download for students who are preparing for the IB Exam.