Slope as a Rate
Amazing Races isn’t just a silly game that kids play, but an experience that students engage as they develop conceptual understanding of one of the most difficult concepts in Pre-Algebra and Algebra 1, slope. Students explore rates through heart rates and through racing each other. The activity causes students to think about how rates are compared. They must have a common unit. The lesson extends this idea to understanding the inclination and declination of lines by looking at their rates and comparing them.
Amazingly, pun intended, this Algebra 1 lesson is designed to help firm up this concept for teachers who are not ‘highly qualified’ in Algebra and even for those who are.