Modeling Pressure: Building Functions F-BF

Product in use image for Pressure Sensor 400Observing the production of carbon dioxide from calcium carbonate and dilute hydrochloric acid

Pressure Sensor 400 by Vernier is a piece of technology used to calculate pressure create by chemical reactions. If were to make a lesson using this I would first speak with a science teacher and find out if you could co-create a lesson plan together using this technology. So in science the students would go over the chemical reaction and why pressure was being produced and then in math students would create a model that represents how the pressure built over time. The labs would already be set up and students would have already done it once to observe the reaction so students could reproduce the same experiment but this time focus on the model created by it. The data collected by the sensor can be sent to computer to create a model where students will interpret what type of function represents that model and derive an equation for it. This lesson help students understand how math relates to other curricula and how it can be used in the real-world. Also, this lesson will help students get used to using technology and therefor learning the set of skills required to interpret how to best use technology.

If you wanted to involve community I believe that this lesson could be done in a lab where students could set the labs up, perform the experiment, and derive functions for the given models while family and friends watch, sort of a presentation of their science and math skills. Students/lab groups could then present their findings to the audience at the end. this would allow family and friends to see what the students are learning and for students to show off what they have learned. also this would allow parents to witness your teaching first-hand. this idea however would require a lot of safety precautions since chemical reactions would be going on.

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