Learning Resources
Outcomes
In this lesson you will
- investigate speed as a rate of change in a car-driving context
- explore a table of data describing a car trip
- calculate speed as the average rate of change over time for various parts of the trip
- explore how information about speed is useful in describing a situation
By the end of this section students will be able to:
- demonstrate an understanding of the concept of rate of change in a variety of situations
- demonstrate an understanding that slope depicts rate of change
- calculate average rates of change
- describe and apply rates of change by analyzing graphs, equations, and descriptions of linear and quadratic functions
Introduction
Mathematical Modeling, Book 3 p.76 - 84
In this section you will calculate average rate of change as a ratio of the change in one variable to the change in another. This is done by looking at a variety of situations; in particular, speed as a ratio of the distance traveled to the time traveling.
Since 
, then the rate (speed) is the ratio of the distance to the time ( i.e. 
) . For the average rate, then write the ratio for the difference in distances to the difference in time. (i.e. 
, between two given distances traveled over specified times)
This section should take 3 hours to complete.
Prerequisites
To be successful in this lesson, it would be helpful to know the following:
- convert km/hr to km/min
- the relationship between speed, distance and time.
- formula for area of rectangles, volume of cylinders, volume of cubes, volume of cones