Sunday, November 27, 2016

Trapezoids and Hypotenuses and Circumferences! Oh My!:The Importance of Geometry

So what is geometry all about? The first thing I think about when I hear the word "geometry" is shapes. When I think about it further, I remember concepts like area, perimeter, parallelogram, circumference, hypotenuse, length and width. But what is the purpose of all of these terms when talking about geometry? To me, geometry is all about shapes and their properties, how we define those shapes and how learning about all of this helps us to better understand the world around us. 
The first time one learns about "geometry" is when you are first learning how to speak. Usually there is a book or poster that has simple shapes like circle and square that are labeled. Then throughout elementary school, we are taught briefly concepts relating to geometry. Then all of a sudden in high school, we are thrown into a class completely dedicated to geometry. We are learning how to identify more complex shapes, the formulas for those shapes, and my personal favorite, how to find the missing side of that shape. Condensing all of this content into one class can throw most students for a loop, but even worse cause them to not retain the information. 
Why would we need to know about geometry? Will we ever even use it in the "real world"? In the world we live in, we are surrounded by space and multitude of objects in that space. Geometry helps us to better understand the objects/shapes around us. Geometry has real world applications that are often not expressed to students. Many occupations use a form of geometry to complete daily tasks. This weekend I watched the movie "Suicide Squad". A character in the movie Dead Shot is a famous hit man who uses geometry and angles to help him "finish the job". Even at the end of the movie, he helps his daughter with her geometry homework by relating it to his line of work. It's a bit of an unconventional example, but an example none the less. 


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