Group Activity Cards

Geometry Use groups of 4. Materials: Flexible drinking straws, metersticks, string, protractor, calculator

The Indirect Approach

Make a right-angle model by taping two drinking straws to each end of a flexible drinking straw, as shown below. Place an object on the classroom floor.

One group member stands facing the object you put on the floor. Using the right-angle model, a protractor, a meterstick, a length of string, and the tangent ratio, find the distance from the first group member to the object on the floor without actually measuring this distance. Use the diagram below to help you decide what to do.