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This spring activity for conic sections in real life is a perfect way to review parabolas, hyperbolas, ellipses, and circles! Your students will use the equations of each conic section to identify different key features.
This real world application is perfect for group work and collaboration in your Algebra 2 or Precalculus classroom. This activity can also be used as a stand-alone formative assessment for conic sections!
This conic sections activity includes:
✅ Finding vertex & zeros of a parabola
✅ Finding foci, major/minor axes, & center of an ellipse
✅ Finding center & radius of a circle
✅ Finding vertices & asymptote of a hyperbola
☆Answer key included☆
Real life applications are an essential part of any curriculum, but can often intimidate students. This activity offers scaffolding to support students as they learn to solve word problems and navigate the problem solving process.
What is the real world scenario?
The annual Spring Festival is in almost here! The planning committee has some last minute calculations to make sure the weekend festivities are a success.
How is this real life application different than regular word problems?
Most word problems have one question that needs to be answered and little follow up or detail. My real world math activities stretch one idea or scenario into a meaningful performance task that can be used as a full assessment of student learning.
This application is more than interpreting the question and quickly getting to the answer. Your students will be challenged to think critically about each scenario and defend their solutions.
The best part? All of the topics are relevant and modernized (because kids don’t care about calculating CD sales or cell phone minutes anymore).
How I have used this real world math application:
⭐Whole Group: This real world math activity is perfect for modeling where to find conic sections in real life.
⭐Small Group: Your students can work together to complete this activity and have discussions about the different equations of conic sections.
⭐ Individual: You can use this activity as a formative assessment for your Algebra 2 or Precalculus students. It will usually take them about one class period to complete on their own.
You may also like:
⭐ Algebra 2 Self-Checking Task Card Bundle
⭐ Analyzing Graphs of Polynomial Functions Assessment | Algebra 2 Group Project
⭐ Arithmetic & Geometric Sequences & Series Activity | Algebra 2 & Precalculus
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