Class Notes

The McGraw-Hill Ryerson PreCalculus 12 Text is used as the Main Resource.

Assignments in the Powerpoint Lesson Plans refer to pages and questions in the PreCalculus 12 text.

  5.4 Equations and Graphs of Trigonometric Functions

  5. Graphing Trig Functions Performance

 5.4 Formative Assessment Graphing Trig Functions

Digital Resources

   Ferris Wheel Unit Circle

Pedagogical Shifts: TRANSFORM, Moving from Traditional to Student-Centered

Shifting from Content-based to Competencies-based

Shifting from Student as Knowledge Recipient to Student as Inquirer and Creator

Shifting from Print-based to Multimodal

I used this short video to allow students to create the equation of the function of the height of a car on a ferris wheel to time. Students had to ask questions and relate the features of the ferris wheel to the values on the graph and the parameters of the sinusoidal function equation. They had to discover how to change the horizontal axis from radians to time and the effect that would have in the function equation. Student were able to discover that the best function equation (in their opinion) was a negative cosine function.

Ferris Wheel Matching Activity

In this activity, students must solve problems involving ferris wheels. In the first problem, students are given dimensions and features of a ferris wheel and need to graph height of a car over time. The middle portion of the activity, students must match graphs, equations, and features of different ferris wheels. Students then finish the activity with problem similar to the first problem.