Just as the Mayans used trigonometry to tell time with sundials, we can also use ourselves to determine what (relative) time of day it is. On Thursday, we went outside and measured our shadows while facing the sun. Students went home and got their own measurements at a different time of the day, using the same procedure as in class. Then, on Friday, we explored the relationship between the two triangles created at the two different times of day.
Our bodies represented the height of the triangle, our shadows were the base, and the hypotenuse was the distance between our head and the tip of the shadow. Students should have determined that shadows are longer at dawn/evening and the shortest right around noon. This is because the angle of elevation (that is, the angle between the Earth and the sun's position) is small during dawn/evening. Our shadow represents the adjacent side. The smaller the angle becomes, the larger cos(our angle) becomes, and thus, the longer the adjacent side (our shadow) becomes.
Shout out to Kierra Robinson and Joe Tripp for making over 100% on their trig projects - they were just THAT good!
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