options: Understand congruence and similarity using physical models, transparencies, or geometry software.

Define trigonometric ratios and solve problems involving right triangles.

Draw, construct, and describe geometrical figures and describe the relationships between them.

Apply geometric concepts in modeling situations.

Experiment with transformations in the plane.

Make geometric constructions.

Understand and apply the Pythagorean Theorem.

Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving area, surface area, and volume.

Reason with shapes and their attributes.

Visualize relationships between two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects.

Find arc lengths and areas of sectors of circles.

Translate between the geometric description and the equation for a conic section.

Understand and apply theorems about circles.

Prove geometric theorems.

Apply trigonometry to general triangles.

Solve real-life and mathematical problems involving angle measure, area, surface area, and volume.

Analyze, compare, create, and compose shapes.

Graph points on the coordinate plane to solve real-world and mathematical problems.

Understand similarity in terms of similarity transformations.

Prove theorems involving similarity.

Use coordinates to prove simple geometric theorems algebraically.

Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving volume of cylinders, cones, and spheres.

Understand congruence in terms of rigid motions.

Classify two-dimensional figures into categories based on their properties.

Draw and identify lines and angles, and classify shapes by properties of their lines and angles.

Explain volume formulas and use them to solve problems.

Identify and describe shapes (squares, circles, triangles, rectangles, hexagons, cubes, cones, cylinders, and spheres).
problem_activity: Activity
In this activity, students calculate side lengths of similar triangles. They can use the scale factor between the similar triangles, studied in depth in previous lessons. Or they can look at internal ratios between corresponding side lengths within the triangles, introduced in the previous lesson. Students need to think strategically about which side lengths to calculate first since there are many missing values. As they discover more side lengths, this opens up more paths for finding the remaining values.
As students work, monitor for students who:
Use scale factors between triangles.
Notice that the long side is twice the short side in
\(GHI\)
and use that to find
\(c\)
,
\(d\)
, or
\(e\)
.
Notice that the long sides are equal in
\(ABC\)
and use that to find
\(h\)
,
\(d\)
, or
\(e\)
.
Select students who use different strategies to find side lengths to share during the discussion.
Launch
Tell students, “There are many ways to find the values of the unknown side lengths in similar triangles. Use what you have learned so far.” Give students 5 minutes of quiet work time followed by 5 minutes small group discussion and then a whole-class discussion.
Representation: Internalize Comprehension.
Demonstrate and encourage students to use color coding and annotations to highlight connections between representations in a problem. For example, use the same color for corresponding side lengths.
Supports accessibility for: Visual-spatial processing
Student Facing
Triangles
\(ABC\)
,
\(EFD\)
, and
\(GHI\)
are all similar. The side lengths of the triangles all have the same units. Find the unknown side lengths.
[IMG]
Student Response
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Anticipated Misconceptions
If students have trouble locating corresponding sides, suggest that they use tracing paper so they can rotate and or translate them. Another technique is to color corresponding side lengths the same color. For example, they could color
\(AB\)
,
\(EF\)
, and
\(GH\)
all red.
Activity Synthesis
Ask selected students to share the following strategies:
using (external) scale factors to move from one triangle to another
using quotients of corresponding side lengths within the triangles (internal scale factors)
Both methods are efficient and the method to use is guided by what information is missing and the numbers involved in the calculations. For example, if
\(h\)
is the first missing value we find, then comparing with triangle
\(ABC\)
and using internal scale factors is appropriate. To find
\(c\)
, again we can compare
\(ABC\)
and
\(GHI\)
and internal scale factors are appropriate again because
\(\frac{6}{5}\)
is half of
\(\frac{12}{5}\)
whereas comparing
\(\frac{12}{5}\)
and
\(4\)
is more involved (the scale factor is
\(\frac{5}{3}\)
from
\(\triangle GHI\)
to
\(\triangle ABC\)
).
Ask students to articulate how they knew which sides of the similar triangles correspond. Make sure to make the following reasoning pathways explicit for all:
Triangle
\(ABC\)
has two equal side lengths, so the other two triangles will as well. This insight is efficient for finding
\(h\)
.
One side of triangle
\(GHI\)
is twice the length of another side, so this will be true of the other triangles as well. This insight is helpful for finding
\(c\)
,
\(d\)
, and
\(e\)
.
Emphasize that there are many different relationships that can be used to find side lengths of similar triangles.
Speaking: MLR8 Discussion Supports:
To support students to articulate how they knew which sides of the similar triangles correspond, provide sentence frames such as, “For similar triangles _____ and _____ I know that sides _____ and _____ correspond because ________." Sentence frames invite and incentivize more student participation, conversation, and meta-awareness of language. This routine should help students reason about the ratio of corresponding sides of similar triangles and communicate their understanding.
Design Principle(s): Support sense-making, Optimize output (for comparison)


correct_option_index: 0