Should you ever order a personal-sized pizza from Pizza Hut? Pizza Hut pizzas come in large, medium, and personal. While the smallest size is the least expensive, it costs the most per square inch and is over half crust!
In this lesson, students calculate circle areas to compare the unit costs of different sized pizzas, find the percent of pizza that is tasty inside vs. crust, and debate whether it’s ever a good idea to order a personal-sized pizza from Pizza Hut.
Students will
Calculate the area of a circle
Use geometric models to solve real-world problems
Use unit rates or proportional reasoning to determine the best deal
Before you begin
Students will use formulas for circumference and area of a circle. You can introduce them as a needed tool in the context of the lesson if needed, though it may be more comfortable if students are already familiar with these.
Which size pizza is the best deal? Is it ever a good idea to buy the personal pan from Pizza Hut? Students use unit rates and percents, and the area of a circle to explore the math behind pizza bargains.
Topic:
Geometry (G), Ratios and Proportional Relationships (RP)
Why do tires appear to spin backwards in some car commercials? Students apply unit rates and the formula for the circumference of a circle to determine what makes a spinning wheel sometimes look like it’s moving in the opposite direction of the car sitting on top of it.
Topic:
Geometry (G), Ratios and Proportional Relationships (RP)
How do camera settings affect the final image, and how can we use aperture and shutter speed to take better pictures? Students use the area of circles and fractions to explore how to properly expose a picture, and how photographers use depth of field and motion blur to get the perfect shot.
How do vehicles turn so smoothly? Students calculate the circumferences of circles to determine how far vehicles travel during a turn and explore the engineering that allows cars to turn so smoothly.
Topic:
Geometry (G)
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Mathalicious lessons provide teachers with an opportunity to teach standards-based math through real-world topics that students care about.
How have video game consoles changed over time? Students create exponential models to predict the speed of video game processors over time, compare their predictions to observed speeds, and consider the consequences as digital simulations become increasingly lifelike.
Topic:
Building Functions (BF), Interpreting Categorical and Quantitative Data (ID), Interpreting Functions (IF), Linear, Quadratic, and Exponential Models (LE), Seeing Structure in Expressions (SSE)