Lesson 5

This lesson is optional. The goal of this lesson is to apply students’ understanding of circumference to calculate how far a wheel travels when it rolls a certain number of times. This relationship is vital for how odometers and speedometers work in vehicles.

In previous lessons, students saw that the relationships between radius, diameter, and circumference of different circles are proportional relationships. In this lesson, they notice that the circumference of a circle is the same as the distance a wheel rolls forward as it completes one rotation. Next, they see that there is also a proportional relationship between the number of times a wheel rotates and the distance the wheel travels. The last activity examines the relationship between the speed a vehicle is traveling and the number of rotations of the tires in a given amount of time.

Students make use of the structure of a proportional relationship as they work toward describing the relationship between the number of rotations of a wheel and the distance the wheel travels with an equation (MP7).

You can reuse the same cylindrical household items from a previous lesson. Again, each group needs 3 items of relatively different sizes; however, it is not as important to include a wide variety of sizes. Because of the restrictions of paper size, you may want to forego using the larger objects (such as the paper plate) in this activity.

Prepare to distribute blank paper that is long enough for students to trace one complete rotation of their cylindrical object. For objects with a diameter greater than 4 inches, receipt tape may be better.