Lesson 5

Open the Lesson 5 Assignment you saved in your course folder at the beginning of this lesson. Complete the assignment.

 

Project Connection

In this lesson you investigated geometric series. In your Module 1 Project you will use geometric series to develop a monthly savings plan. Go to Module 1 Project: Financing Your Dreams, and complete Project Connection 5: Monthly Savings Plan.

 

Going Beyond

 

In Lesson 4 and Lesson 5 you considered the height of a bouncing ball. You can test the assumptions of these problems by conducting your own experiment with a bouncing ball.

 

One of the assumptions in these problems is that a ball will consistently bounce to a certain fraction of the previous height. Do you think this is true? Test your hypothesis on several balls with different bounce heights. You may want to try a tennis ball, a ping-pong ball, or a basketball.

 

Design an experiment to see how consistently a ball bounces to a percentage of the previous height. For how many bounces does this consistency last? What is the maximum number of countable bounces before the ball stays on the ground?

 

In the next lesson you will consider the sum of an infinite number of terms. If a ball were to bounce infinitely, what would be the total vertical distance travelled by the ball? How could you verify your prediction?

 

Save your experimental design and your results in your course folder.

 

Check with your teacher to see if your work should be submitted.