Lesson Plan Problem 3.

2: Time, Rate, and Distance

Learning Goals Prior Knowledge

Further develop understanding of unit rates Rounding decimals

and how to compute and interpret them Basic understanding of fractions
Work with the important application of rates Basic multiplication skills
to miles per hour (speed) Basic division skills
Introduce the concept of average or Unit conversions
steady rate of progress

Probing Questions and Opportunities to Lesson Tasks

Further Learning

How many minutes are in an hour? How Problem 3.2: Time, Rate, and
could you convert minutes to hours? Distance
What exactly do you know about Saschas
trip?
How could you set up a ratio to help you
find his speed?
Are you going to have to scale up or scale
down? How do you know?
How is a unit rate different than a rate?
If I send two of you out of the room to go to
the library to get a book, is it possible for
you to each walk at different rates and get
there at the same time? If so, give an
example.
Could one of you walk at a steady rate over
the entire distance and get there at the
same time as someone walking for part of
the time at a faster rate? How so?

Activity Flow
Launch (5-10 minutes)
o I will begin the class by reading the story of Saschas ride to the class, going over
the Did You Know? section, and talking about students experiences riding bikes
o I will also go over the information that is provided and help them make sense of
what they are given
o I will ask students to tell me what a rate is and what a unit rate is by revisiting
problem 3.1
o We will also discuss what an average or a steady rate means and I will have
them give me examples.
Parts A and B (5-10 minutes)
o Students will work and discuss Parts A and B with their groups. Students will set-
up ratios for each part of Saschas cycling route in miles per minute. They will then
have to find equivalent ratios that will tell them Saschas speed in miles per hour.
This will require them to scale their ratios up. Afterwards, they will compare the
different speeds they found to determine which stretch of his cycling route he went
the fastest and which he went the slowest. After students have time to explore, we
will come together as a class and discuss each groups strategy/method for each
part.
Parts C and D (20 minutes)
 oAgain, students will work and discuss parts C and D with their groups. Students
will be given rate of speed and asked to find how long they will have to travel to
cover the same distance Sascha went in a given time in part C. This problem can
be done in multiple ways. Students will have to use unit conversions, scale factors,
and create proportions to answer this problem. For part D, students will use similar
methods to find out at what rate they need to travel to tie with Sascha.
Summary (10 minutes)
o I will ask students the following questions to check for understanding:
What do your answers to question A tell you?
Distance per unit of time for each part of the ride
Do you think his speed was constant throughout each time interval? Why
or why not?
No, it is hard to ride a bike at a steady rate. He most likely had some
variation in rate of speed over each time interval.
How can you tell when he is going faster if you compute miles per minute?
The greater the miles per minute, the faster he is going
How can you tell when he is going faster if you compute minutes per mile?
The fewer the number of minutes per mile, the faster he is going
How can you match the parts of the trip to the conditions of the path?
Explain.
He would probably go fastest on the downhill portion, slowest during
the uphill portion, and middling fast on the flat stretch. Therefore,
Part 1 was the slowest and probably uphill, Part 2 was probably on flat
road, and Part 3 was the fastest and probably downhill.

Misconceptions

Students might be uncertain about how to write ratios

Students might try to scale ratios using different numbers for the numerator and
denominator
Students might set their ratios up incorrectly or misunderstand what their ratios mean in
the context
Students might have difficulty converting to different units

Summary

This problem provides students with a real-life situation where they need to set-up
proportions and use scale factors to compare different rates. Many students in the
Owosso area use bicycles as their main source of transportation to and from school,
which makes this problem relevant to their lives. This problem comes out of the
Connected Mathematics Project: Comparing and Scaling which provides real-life, high-
cognitive demand problems that require critical thinking as opposed to memorization.