The Concept of Change in MYP Geometry
In MYP Geometry, students are studying what it means to transform. To start the unit, students discussed the concept of change in general terms, thinking about changes that they are currently experiencing or particularly influential changes that they experienced in the past. To build on this conversation, students also considered what remained stable and unchanged throughout those times and how they persevered through those changes.
Following these conversations, students began to look at the same concepts but in a mathematical context. In this unit on geometric transformations, students are exploring the IB concepts of change, equivalence, and creativity by exploring the dynamics of how equivalence can be maintained throughout change and how creative thinking can be used to explore these changes. As a tool for making sense of this, students are using the coordinate plane to examine the ways that figures change position by shifting, reflecting, or rotating, as well as how the properties of these figures, such as size and shape, remain the same.
This week, students took all the knowledge and understanding they have been building throughout the unit and looked at how to apply those skills in real world situations. These included everything from changing the location of furniture in your room, to plotting the movement of an object, to how your phone flips your image when you take a selfie! In solving these problems, students were expected to extract relevant information from the context, determine a plan for solving, and then put that plan into action to reach a solution. Moving into the end of the unit, students will investigate our final transformation of dilations, where they will have to use even more creativity to understand the properties of change and equivalence taking place. Let the investigating begin!!