Composition of Trig Functions Leap Frog

As I was preparing to teach the concept of compositions of trig functions, I read this post on Math = Love. Sarah explained how to play the game of leap frog to help students practice finding the values of trig functions using the unit circle. When I looked at Sarah's answer bank for the activity, I knew that I could easily adapt it to the compositions of trig functions I wanted to practice with my students. 

The bulk of the work was putting together slides for the questions so I could switch to the next question with just a click. Now, I love all things Google, but there is no equation editor in Google Slides. So, I put all of the expressions in a Google Doc and then cut and pasted them into the Slides presentation. It was a lot of work, but I was happy with the end result. It was also a big hit in class, and by the end, the light bulb had turned on for the whole class for this concept. 

I did this in February, before Coronavirus sent us all home. Since we were together, I actually had them leave the answer cards behind and just move seats and use the answer cards that were at the next seat.  If we are together this coming school year for this, I may need students to carry their answer cards with them to whatever seat they are moving to to minimize sharing of supplies. 

So, here are my files:

Google slide with all of the questions, one per slide.

Google doc with all of the expressions together.

Answer sheet from Math = Love.

March Mammal Madness

Through different science teacher groups in Facebook, I was introduced to March Mammal Madness. Last year was the first time that I participated with my Honors Biology class. In preparation I used painters tape on the wall outside my classroom to mark out the bracket. Then I put together a Google Slides document formatted the way I wanted it to be for students to fill in information about each of the competitors to put on the wall bracket. We split the animals evenly among all of the students and they worked on filling out the information for their assigned animals. Students also used the Slides presentation to make more informed decisions as they were filling out their own brackets. We allowed any student in the school who wanted to compete to fill out a bracket and follow along. As the competitions happened, I moved the winners forward on the brackets so everyone could see the progress. 

Student-made information sheets for two of the 2020 competitors.

Students finished filling out their brackets before the actual competitions began and were ready to go once the battles ensued. The day after each battle happened on twitter, we would watch the rodent recap done by Rodent Roudtable on YouTube in class. Even my high schoolers enjoyed the cheesy recaps of the competitions.  At the end, I gave the student with the highest score on their bracket a little trophy that I had bought off of Amazon.

Sample information sheets from 2019

This year, we went to online learning shortly after the competitions began. Students appreciated that even if everything else was cancelled, at least March Mammal Madness was still happening and we could still watch the recaps together as a class.

If you'd like to participate in MMM, Arizona State University's site here is the place to get started. Here is the link to the Google Slide that I put together for students to use to put the animal information in.