Barbie Zipline – Applying Angle of Elevation
I modified this activity from one done by Matt Vaudrey and John Stevens . I believe that they used the activity to study Pythagorean Theorem and the distance formula. Here is a write-up of John’s lesson. I used it to have students practice solving simple trigonometric triangles involving angle of elevation. I started the lesson with the same video that John did. I asked the kids if they had ever been on a zipline and if so where. A few kids had stories to share. I asked them about what would make a zipline ‘good.’ This led them to the safe and fun metric. They knew that the zipline needed to be both safe and fun if people were going to enjoy the ride. I set up a mini zipline in my classroom. The starting height was fixed at some random value because I already had a command hook stuck to one of my cabinets. It was at about 147 cm. The zipline was just fishing line. I used a carabiner and velco me...