Education Technology


The Derivatives of Logs

Activity Overview

Students will use the Chain Rule to find the derivative of more complex exponential and logarithmic functions.

Key Steps

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    Students begin the activity by using the graph of the natural logarithm to estimate the graph of its derivative function. They will inspect the slope of a tangent to the graph of the natural logarithm function and create a scatter plot that models this information. Students will find a function that fits the scatter plot.

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    Next, students will generalize their findings for any logarithmic function.

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    Finally, students will investigate an interesting property related to a tangent to y = ln x.