Barbie Zipline for Pythagorean Theorem and Inverse Trig Functions

UPDATE!

Barbie went to high school and can now do inverse trig functions with her zipline engineering! Geometry students found angles of depression using inverse trig functions and Pythagorean theorem to find the length of cable they needed! The handout and more photos can be found at the end of this post!

  

Math and Science classes could have been sponsored by Mattel this year with all the Barbie involved! You can read about our super fun Barbie Bungee adventures here or over at my awesome partner science teacher's blog where we dropped Barbie from the top of the football stadium bleachers.

                           

After doing Barbie Bungee with our students this year for scatter plots, we leaked the plans that we would also be doing Barbie Zipline. Students had really been looking forward to this and as soon as they saw the unit divider for their notebooks was Pythagorean Theorem, they erupted with excitement and questions!

The lesson started with this video to get them thinking about the criteria of what makes a zipline fun but safe. Most line, height, and speed! We reminded them that just like Barbie Bungee, we wanted to give Barbie a thrill without killing her! Students were also given a budget to work within to get their business started. After looking at all the ways other teachers have done this lesson, I liked how Andrew Stadel at Divisible by 3 did it so I used his plan to guide me...along with talking out every detail 47 times and adjusting throughout the day with my amazing co-teachers! Here is the handout for their notebooks where I combined all the things I stole found and changed it to a fun font!

Students had to get their designs approved by our super awesome maintenance guy or amazing library media specialist. Our library media specialist gave them a tough time and even had some redesign their zipline before she would approve it! One group forgot to take their money with them to pay for the permit and she charged them interest by the minute while they {ran} to get the money! I love that the whole building was involved in their learning. 

We walked through the criteria together and they had to come up with three designs. One that would be instant, certain death for Barbie, one where Barbie may get stuck or lack a thrilling ride, and a ride just right where Barbie goes a safe, fun speed. 

                 

Students worked hard on their designs and stood in line to get them approved! I gave them the height (leg) of the launch which was the catwalk at the cafeteria. They used the tiles on the cafeteria floor to measure where the zipline should be held (leg). The hypotenuse was the amount of cable needed and they had to calculate that as well. I let them have a walkthrough of the cafeteria to make any last minute adjustments to their design and that was Day 1.

For Day 2, launch day, the science classes timed the Barbies going down the ziplines and calculated the speed for each group. We used feet for the design measurement so students could use the tiles but for the speed we had them convert to meters. It was awesome to see mathematicians launching their Barbies while the scientists collected the data below! I love when our powers combine! 

In the videos below, you can see the launch and the students timing and calculating below. I love everything about this lesson and the Pythagorean Theorem!

I am so happy so many want to try this in their classrooms! Here is the link to the interactive notebook page I used. Please make it your own and let me know how it goes and how we can make it better! Yay math!

Barbie Zipline for Interactive Notebook

Barbie Zipline using inverse trig functions

This post is part of the MTBoS Blaugust Festival of Mathematics Blogging! Click the photo to be taken to some amazing math bloggers!