Staircases and Steepness, Continued

This happened Thursday.

By Friday morning the kids who did "base times height" learned that these numbers didn't match up with the steepness ranking. They said, "That just gives you area."

So I made these sketches, and hopefully the kids understood why finding area wasn't the same as finding steepness.

Those who did not do "base times height" shared what they'd calculated for steepness:

Because almost everyone got the correct steepness ranking the day before, they knew their homework calculations had to match the order, with staircases B and E yielding the same number.

Rapha: My dad helped me. I learn that the steeper it is, the number gets closer to zero.

Jocelyn: I measured one of them wrong. Did I just get lucky then?

Ryan: I tried base divided by height first, then I changed my mind to height divided by base because it made more sense for the numbers to go up instead of down... if it's gonna get steeper.

Matt: My base minus height did not work!

Arthur: Rapha's kinda the same as Ryan's, except backwards. And if you add her step widths, you get the base.

I was on cloud nine. Then I finally said the word slope, but I never said "rise over run." We ended class with this video "Tutorial — Measure Slope Steepness" by Bruce Tremper, Director of the Utah Avalanche Center.

We had a busy but fun Friday as it was also our 3rd quarter PFO-funded Einstein pizza party. Luckily my prep period is right before lunch to allow me to leave campus to get the 8 pizzas at Costco. The weather was gorgeous and we had 10 minutes left of geometry, so I took the kids outside to play Fizz-Buzz. If you've never played Fizz-Buzz with your kids, then don't start unless you want them to constantly pester you to play the game, even when there's only a minute left of class.