# Engaging students: Finding the area of a circle

In my capstone class for future secondary math teachers, I ask my students to come up with ideas for engaging their students with different topics in the secondary mathematics curriculum. In other words, the point of the assignment was not to devise a full-blown lesson plan on this topic. Instead, I asked my students to think about three different ways of getting their students interested in the topic in the first place.

I plan to share some of the best of these ideas on this blog (after asking my students’ permission, of course).

This student submission comes from my former student Joe Wood. His topic, from Geometry: finding the area of a circle.

The students would be greeted with Lion King’s “Circle of Life” song. While the song has nothing to do with area of a circle, it would create a different and exciting buzz in the classroom that wouldn’t always be offered in this form. (Plus, who doesn’t want to hear a little Lion King music?)

C1. How has this topic appeared in pop culture (movies, TV, current music, video games, etc.)?

A1. What interesting (i.e., uncontrived) word problems using this topic can your students do now?

A great activity I found on the Mathbits website tackles both questions C1 and A1.
The two-page worksheet below is based off a scene from the movie Castaway. In the scene, Tom Hanks calculates the area of a circle to figure out the likelihood of his rescue. He then compares his calculated area to the area of Texas (which for young students who are all about Texas like I was, this is another attention getter on its own). I would show the clip (having sent a permission slip home since Tom Hanks is shirtless) which can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y89VE9_2Cig so that students can have a good laugh and also understand the scene described on the worksheet. While most, if not all students will never be stranded on a deserted island, this would be an interesting real world problem for the “survivalist” kid in the class.

The worksheet is great because it starts off asking if Tom’s calculations were even correct. It then has several example problems for area of a circle so they can practice, but it also brings in linear speed calculations, and a circumference problem which is great review (and a good warm up if you were maybe moving into angular speed later).

A1. What interesting (i.e., uncontrived) word problems using this topic can your students do now?

Another interesting real world problem can be found at http://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/geometry.html. The problem deals with solar energy on satellites (or solar panels in general). It talks about how much energy is needed to operate a satellite, tells the student how much energy is provided by solar cells per square centimeter, gives them different shaped solar panels, and ask is the solar panel can produce enough energy.

This specific worksheet only uses half of a circle on one problem, so it should be revised by the teacher to include more circles; however, once again, I think keeping all the different shapes is a great review for students. I also think having the semicircular shaped panel is a great idea to keep the students on their toes.

A2. How could you as a teacher create an activity or project that involves your topic?

If one stereotype can be made about middle/high school students (especially the boys), it is that they love to eat! And, what do they like to eat? PIZZA! There are several ways this next idea could be carried out (pun intended), but for the purposes of this assignment I will call it a class project that ends in a pizza party.
The idea is that each pair of student will be assigned a pizza restaurant in the area, and they will do a presentation on why we should order pizza from this pizza place specifically. They will have find all the pizza sizes (small, medium, large, etc.) , their  prices, their diameters, the areas of  each pizza, the price per square inch of each of the pizzas, and the best buy. They can talk about anything else they want (such as quality vs price or customer service or whatever) so long as they are trying to sway the class on why the pizza should be purchased from this specific place. Finally, the students will need to provide some kind of proof of their work (menus, calculations, etc) in an organized fashion: PowerPoint, poster board, or some other method.

After the project is complete, the teacher can select the place to buy from, or hold it to a class vote, and have a pizza party during lunch hour or after school or in class.

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