Flight Costs #MFM2P

I’ve done this activity once previously. I changed how I did it for this second go. I will change it again for next semester.

Here’s how it went this time …

Students were presented with this data:

Students were asked:

The task for day 1: Determine the initial value & rate, on average, for flights with Air Canada.

love how this group labelled the rate & initial value

This group worked with a quadratic model. And while it wasn’t the target learning goal for the lesson, it turned out to be a better fit than linear! Made for a great class discussion.

this group started trying to find the average cost per kilometre. they then switched to a linear regression on desmos after seeing others doing that.

this group was working on a average rate per kilometre after seeing another group try the same

Some groups went to Desmos straight away. Others needed some reminding that Desmos can be very helpful with data like this.

On day 2, groups were asked to determine the distance they could fly for $500 using their equations from the previous day. I only took a photo of one group’s board that day:

I think next semester I will change this up. I think I will present the name of a city & ask students to estimate the cost of flying there. Then I’ll give them the set of data for cost & distance for multiple cities, but with the first city blanked out; perhaps allowing them to adjust their estimate if they like. We’ll do notice & wonder, and then proceed to solve for the price. I won’t specify modelling algebraically but will perhaps create a Desmos activity builder they can do to practice that in the case where they don’t use an algebraic model to solve.

Update: Find the Desmos activity builder follow-up here

Activity available here.

– Laura Wheeler (Teacher @ Ridgemont High School, OCDSB; Ottawa, ON)