At a glance
Whole class plus invited guests · one class period · four units of thinking, presented and defended live
What you are making
The symposium is the finale: every pair hosts a station, and invited guests — other teachers, administrators, family — work the room the way visitors work a science fair. Your station’s centrepiece is the flight plan from The Flight Path, surrounded by one artefact from each earlier unit: the speed-camera verdict, the landing profile, the package. Every guest asks the same two questions, at every station: where is the mathematics doing the work? and where does the model stop? You finish with a five-minute tour you can give repeatedly, a one-page handout, and answers to whatever the room throws at you.
Milestones
- Station materials made: the flight plan, one artefact per unit, one-page handout
- The five-minute tour rehearsed until it survives interruptions
- The two symposium questions answered in writing first, then out loud, per Showing Your Thinking
- Final Reflection begun while the day is still fresh
How it is assessed
Per How Marks Work, communication is the evidence today: precise vocabulary, representations chosen for the audience in front of you, and honesty about each model’s limits. Guests leave written feedback; your Math Journal closes with Final Reflection, and the growth it shows across four volumes is the last word.
Success criteria
| Quality | What it looks like in your work |
|---|---|
| A clear story | A stranger follows four units in five minutes |
| Precision | Vocabulary and notation used correctly, aloud |
| Grace under fire | Questions answered, not deflected |
| Honest limits | Every model’s edges volunteered, not extracted |
If nerves are the obstacle
The tour is a conversation, not a recital. You have been answering these two questions since the first week; the guests are simply new people asking them. Rehearse once with someone patient, then trust the preparation.
Curriculum connection
A1.1
describe examples of real-world applications of rates of change, represented in a variety of ways (e.g., in words, numerically, graphically, algebraically)
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B2.5
solve problems arising from real-world applications by applying a mathematical model and the concepts and procedures associated with the derivative to determine mathematical results, and interpret and communicate the results Sample problem: A bird is foraging for berries. If it stays too long in any one patch it will be spending valuable foraging time looking for the hidden berries, but when it leaves it will have to spend time finding another patch. A model for the net amount of food energy in joules the bird gets if it spends minutes in a patch is . Suppose the bird takes 2 min on average to find each new patch, and spends negligible energy doing so. How long should the bird spend in a patch to maximize its average rate of energy gain over the time spent flying to a patch and foraging in it? Use and compare numeric, graphical, and algebraic strategies to solve this problem.
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C2.8
solve problems involving dot product and cross product (e.g., determining projections, the area of a parallelogram, the volume of a parallelepiped), including problems arising from real-world applications (e.g., determining work, torque, ground speed, velocity, force) Sample problem: Investigate the dot products and for any two vectors and in three-space. What property of the cross product does this verify?
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