Function Carnival

Dan Meyer created a post last week about the program that I had mentioned in a previous post, Function Carnival. Meyer helped create this online math program to make test taking more fun for students. In this recent post, he shows us three different examples for students to graph the motion of rides at the carnival. 

Cannon Man's Graph 

The students would be given cannon man and be asked to graph his motion. Here, they would end up with a graph that is both quadratic and linear.

Bumper Car's Graph

The students would be given the path of a bumper car and asked to graph the motion. Here, they would have drawn a piece-wise linear function.

Ferris Wheel Graph

Students would be given the motion of a Ferris wheel and be asked to graph it. Here, the graph would be sinusoidal.

I think this is a great program and a wonderful way to get students more interested in what they are learning. It would be much more fun for them to view carnival rides and then try to graph them with this program then for them to sit there with pencil and paper. The graphs go from simple linear to sinusoidal graphs so varying ages and grades could use this program.