This activity is intended to provide students with an opportunity to discover a few interesting properties of an ellipse. The first property students will explore forms the basis of the definition of an ellipse, i.e., the set of all points such that the sum of the distances from these points to two fixed points is constant.
Before the Activity
Download the attached PDF and look over the information on the first page. Download and distribute the attached TI-Nspire document (.tns file) and Student Worksheet for use during the activity.
During the Activity
Discuss the material from the activity pages and worksheet with students as needed.
After the Activity
Encourage students to summarize what they have learned from completing the activity.
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