Hearing and deaf students wrote notes and used gestures to communicate with each other. I wanted to create a project in which students could experience working in teams with their hearing peers without an interpreter. I contacted a math teacher at the neighboring public high school and discussed the idea of combining our two geometry classes. Her response was enthusiastic-and our project was underway. In geometry, ricochet, or the angle at which matter is reflected from a hard surface, is termed reflection.
Students try out the newly constructed greens.
Students had to use the geometric properties of reflection to achieve these possibilities. They had to use a 4' by 8' sheet of plywood to create their green. In preparation for the project, each class spent about a week learning about geometry transformations. Examples in both billiards and miniature golf were used to figure out and draw angles of reflection. Once students were able to draw reflections on paper, they were ready to get together in teams to create their green.