Lesson 2

Lesson 2: Operations on Radicals

Focus

The rate of a chemical reaction is extremely important. The rate may determine whether a chemical is violently explosive, very useful, or whether it will remain as a pollutant in the environment for decades. When substances A and B combine to produce C, a radical equation involving the rate of reaction and concentration of substances is .

Knowing how to work with and correctly simplify a radical expression is needed in all branches of science, not just chemistry and astronomy. In this lesson you will enhance your ability to work with radicals, including adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, and simplifying radicals and their components. These radical equations will model situations on this planet and throughout the universe.

Outcomes

At the end of this lesson you will be able to

• simplify radical expressions with numerical or variable radicands by performing one or more mathematical operations

• identify the values of the variable for which a given radical expression is defined

Lesson Questions

You will investigate the following questions:

• How do you simplify a complex radical by correctly performing addition, subtraction, multiplication, and/or division?
  
  
• For what values of the variable is a given radical expression defined?

Assessment

Your assessment may be based on a combination of the following tasks:

• completion of the Lesson 2 Assignment (Download the Lesson 2 Assignment and save it in your course folder now.)
  
  
• course folder submissions from Try This and Share activities
  
  
• additions to Module 5 Glossary Terms and Formula Sheet
  
  
• work under Project Connection