National Honor Society

National Honor Society inducted ten new members in the Fairbury chapter.  Students were selected by a faculty council based on scholarship, leadership, character and service.  FHS has been part of this national organization since 1936 inducting new members every year.  Chapter president, Ryan Umland, lead the ceremony with readings, candles, signatures, a pledge and a poem.

New members include: Madison Black, Emily Burkley, Jonathan Engelman, Althea Esteller, Jacob Johnson, Macy Ohlde, Britney Scheetz, Evie Schwab, Jolie Scott and Megg Vaughn

Members carried over from last year include: Nick Christiansen, Halle Knigge, Mark Kroeker, Lindsay Lee, Trevin Likens, Paul Mach, Patrick Ondrak, Justin Peterson, Anna Schouboe, Ryan Umland and Hannah Yantz.

These students are expected to be leaders in their school and community, while maintaining a high GPA, distinguished character and active service.

 

Building Polyhedrons

Geometry students built their vocabulary words today.  Polyhedrons are constructed with faces, edges and vertices.  Our clay and toothpicks were a little messy, but a lot creative.  In the pictures you can see tetrahedrons, pentahedrons, hexahedrons, heptahedrons and octahedrons.  Most examples include two models of each polyhedron.

Inductive reasoning allows us to look at the data, find a pattern and make a generalization about that pattern.  Students put their heads together to discover Euler’s Formula:  V + F – E = 2.  That is read “vertices plus faces minus edges equals 2”.

Once again, learning can get loud!

By the way, here is our riddle for the day:  What did the bird do when he got scared?  Poly he’d run!  (Get it?  Polyhedron!)

 

 

IMG_2113 IMG_2114 IMG_2116 IMG_2117 IMG_2118 IMG_2119 IMG_2120 IMG_2121

How tall is the light pole?

Geometry students calculated the height of the giant light pole on the east side of the football field.  Cooperative groups of four students each fulfilled their responsibility to measure three segments and solve for a missing value.  Using similar triangles theorems, Angle-Angle-Similarity allowed students to set up a proportion.  The result was 83 feet.unnamedIMG_2097 IMG_2098 IMG_2099

Integer Tournament

Ready, set, ROLL!

Students in Mrs. Petersen’s General Math 8 class spent Friday morning rolling dice with enthusiasm!  Each student held a red and green dice; red = positive numbers and green = negative numbers.  With two dice bouncing on the table, students race to find a sum first.  Gathering up to fifteen points, students worked their way through a double elimination tournament.

Do they know they solved up to 105 math problems today?  Positive energy was evident in the numerous smiles, unseen during a traditional math worksheet.  Whether you add and subtract integers with a number line, colored coins, algorithms (step by step rules) or a pair of dice, students are mastering Nebraska Math Standard 8.1.2a.

Learning can be loud.  The sound of dice landing in the table and students shouting answers filled the classroom.

Click for a video link.

Tournament bracket
Tournament bracket
final round
final round
Winner!
Winner!
Getting faster with practice
Getting faster with practice
Enthusiasm!
Enthusiasm!
Just getting started
Just getting started
Who is going to win?
Who is going to win?
Engaged in learning
Engaged in learning

 

Thinking Caps ~ When will I use this in life?

When will I ever have to solve a proportion in life?  That’s a great question!  Students in Mrs. Julie Petersen’s 8th grade math class selected a fun hat – Thinking Cap – to wear during class.  While wearing that hat they wrote short stories about how that particular hat-wearing-person would use a proportion in life.

Joel stated, “Bonnie the bunny is looking for three carrots to eat for the next five days.  If she looks for 15 days, how many carrots does she need?”

Bri may find a future in the royal family.  “The princess had 100 pieces of jewelry and the prince had 50.  They both went to the store and the princess came back with 500 pieces of jewelry.  How many did her prince bring home?”

Other students were talking about bananas, fish, books, horses and even tigers jumping through flaming hoops!  They didn’t even pause to ask why they were writing complete sentences in math!

The smiles continued as Trent asked, “If I told 12 jokes and my sister told 7 jokes, then next day I told 24 jokes, how many did my sister tell?”

Life application of math lessons add value to long term memories.

Hat donations are accepted.  🙂

Thinking Caps also help do assignments
Thinking Caps also help do assignments
Thinking caps for some students in block 1.
Thinking caps for some students in block 1.
What is your math teacher wearing today?
What is your math teacher wearing today?
Dr. Suess is always welcome in math
Dr. Suess is always welcome in math
You should hear his jokes!
You should hear his jokes!
Thinking caps for some students in block 2.
Thinking caps for some students in block 2.

Flowcharts ~ Visualizing Proofs

Geometry proofs can be extra challenging for students.  Even parents remember solving proofs when they were in school.  Paragraph proofs and two column proofs can be simplified by making them visual with a flowchart proof.

Students in Mrs. Petersen’s geometry class assembled their knowledge of congruent angles (vertical, alternate interior, angle bisector) and congruent segments (midpoint, isosceles triangle, reflexive, parallelogram) to prove triangles are congruent.  All the needed information was given for students to cut and paste in the right order.  Then arrows can show the flow through the process.

Although still challenging, students worked hard and found success.  At the end of class Mrs. Petersen said, “I can hear your brains getting exhausted.”  It is rewarding to see the skills of the first month of school assembled in to one problem.  One of the students in class replied, “I think I actually understand flowcharts!  It was easier than I expected.”

With all of the cutting and pasting, students saved paper by recycling (better known as reusing) old softball game programs.

See pictures below for examples of their work.IMG_1861 IMG_1863 IMG_1864 IMG_1865 IMG_1866

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