Activities

Segments In Circles

Published on 09/02/2010

Students explore the relationships among segments created by two intersecting chords, and secant segments.

In this problem, students start by creating a circle using the Circle tool.
Students draw and label the chords, recording the values. They then use the Calculate tool to calculate the product of the lengths of the segments of each chord.

They record their answers and observations.
Students should open the ChordSec file. The figure shows two chords intersecting inside a circle.

They will drag point P outside of the circle as shown. Students observe the measured values of the segment lengths with P in its new location.