Friday, August 12, 2011

Any Suggestions on How to Teach Special Right Triangles?

I have shown the relationship of the sides. We have worked problems. We have used unit sides and soled with the Pythagorean Theorem.

They even say they are over thinking this.

Any suggestions?
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2 comments:

SMiller said...

This doesn't always work, but I have them fold a square in half to show that a 45-45-90 is half of a square (and then they can label the sides x, x, x*sqrt(2)), and then fold an equilateral triangle in half so they can see the relationships among the sides (and label everything).

August 12, 2011 at 7:31 PM
mathematicamama said...

Another way that works for some is to use similar triangles( 1-1-rt2 and 1-2-rt3) for the ones that like solving proportions. A few teachers skip it altogether and use just trig.

August 13, 2011 at 4:55 PM

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