Education Technology

Ball Toss Activity

Author
Subject Area
Math: Algebra I: Quadratic Functions
Level
9-12
Activity Time
40-45 Minutes
TI Calculator
TI-84 series
Accessories
CBR™ 2 motion sensor
Other Materials
If you want to modify the activity to have the students collect the data, you will need a CBR™ and any kind of ball to toss.
Resource Types
Lessons

Ball Toss Activity

Activity Overview

Students receive data from tossing a ball into the air. They are to graph it, set a window, and analyze the height, how long it was in the air, etc. They then find an equation that models the data.

Before the Activity

Students need to be familiar with logging into the TI-Navigator™ System and also running programs and working with stat plots and lists.
All the files for this activity need to be downloaded to your computer.
The balltoss lab.doc student sheet needs to be printed out and copied off for the students.

During the Activity

For the Activity, a student activity sheet is provided. Use TI-Navigator to send the program Balltoss to student's calculators.
Then open the activity center and load the file balltoss.act. While the students are working on the data, you load the lists balltossL1 and balltossL2 in the activity center, Configure Plots, and press the ZoomStat button to see the data on the screen. Start the activity and students can submit their equations when they are ready.
You can use Quick Polls to check for student understanding and to review responses to the questions on the activity sheet.

After the Activity

Review student results:

  • As a class, discuss questions that appeared to be more challenging
  • Re-teach concepts as necessary
  • Author
    Subject Area
    Math: Algebra I: Quadratic Functions
    Level
    9-12
    Activity Time
    40-45 Minutes
    TI Calculator
    TI-84 series
    Accessories
    CBR™ 2 motion sensor
    Other Materials
    If you want to modify the activity to have the students collect the data, you will need a CBR™ and any kind of ball to toss.
    Resource Types
    Lessons
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