Unpacked Content
Knowledge
Students know:
- Techniques for dimensional analysis,
- Uses of technology in producing graphs of data.
- Criteria for selecting different displays for data (e.g., knowing how to select the window on a graphing calculator to be able to see the important parts of the graph.
- Descriptive models .
- Attributes of measurements including precision and accuracy and techniques for determining each.
Skills
Students are able to:
- Choose the appropriate known conversions to perform dimensional analysis to convert units.
- Correctly use graphing window and other technology features to precisely determine features of interest in a graph.
- Determine when a descriptive model accurately portrays the phenomenon it was chosen to model.
- Justify their selection of model and choice of quantities in the context of the situation modeled and critique the arguments of others concerning the same situation.
- Determine and distinguish the accuracy and precision of measurements.
Understanding
Students understand that:
- The relationships of units to each other and how using a chain of conversions allows one to reach a desired unit or rate.
- Different models reveal different features of the phenomenon that is being modeled.
- Calculations involving measurements can't produce results more accurate than the least accuracy in the original measurements.
- The margin of error in a measurement, (often expressed as a tolerance limit), varies according to the measurement, tool used, and problem context.
Vocabulary
- Units
- Scales
- Descriptive modeling
- Justify
- Interpret
- Identify
- Quantities
- Dimensional analysis
- Formulas
- Scale
- Consistency
- Precise
- Accuracy
- Margin of error
- Perimeter
- Volume
- Area
- Direct measurement
