Google Map Lesson

View Hawaii in a larger map

 In upper level math we start talking about functions and the limits.  The limit is the value that the function approaches.  This activity I designed to have students start thinking about the concept of limits.  The students will first be instructed to find an island in Hawaii.  They can use any island that they would like.  They are going to be looking at the perimeter of the island (or in other worlds the linear miles of coastline).  They will use the line feature to draw around the island. The goal is to get an accurate perimeter.  The first time they must only use 4 segments together to form a closed shape that would give the best representation of the perimeter.  To form the next closed shape they must use a different color and 25 and 30 segments.  The final closed shape (of a different color) must contain at least 50.  The goal of this last shape is to be as accurate as possible.


Looking at the map I created, this is an example of what I hope the students would create.  The colors represent the three different criteria.  Using an online resource, the students would then need to find the actual miles of coastline.  For my island, the actual miles of coastline was 106.  From my map you will see that as I used more segments to create my shape my estimation was more accurate.  This will lead into the discussion of limits.