Ethan Holst

Hannah
Math 3 Hour 5
4/28/18
Reflection Semester 2

On Patrol POW

1. Problem Statement
Two main highways cross each other as they go through a certain county. The highway
patrol wants to set up a station that will be the same distance from the two highways.
What would be the case if there was three highways that cross each other?

2. Visual Representation(s)

3. Process
Two highways:
Wherever the two highways cross, draw a bisecting line through each of the angles.
You can put the station anywhere on the line.
Three highways:
If there is 3 crossing highways, you can find where the station should be by drawing
lines bisecting all angles. Anywhere where these bisecting lines cross is where a
solution can be.

4. Solution
Two highways:
With two highways there will always be infinite solutions, because you can put the
station anywhere along the lines.
Three highways:
If there is 3 highways, there will always be one solution, as long as all of the lines cross.
However if they do not, there is a possibility that there can be no solution if all of the
lines are parallel.
Four or more highways:
There is no guarantee that you will be able to place the station anywhere that is
equidistant from all lines. However, there are certain instances that will work for this.

5. Evaluation
I thought that this problem was cool, however it was too similar to the last one we did
with the sprinklers and the roses. I think learning this would be more effective if we had
done one of these problems in class and saved the other one for a POW so that we had
to think outside the box and figure out how the problems were connected.

6. Self-Assessment
I feel like I did well on this problem, but it wasn’t very difficult for me because it was
similar to our last one. I think that this would have challenged me more had I not seen
the sprinkler problem.

Project Reflection
I think that the independent research project was a good idea, and I think that our
exhibition went wonderfully. I really liked being able to do a project where we could
apply math to the real world through an outlet that we were interested in. The outlet that
I chose was gambling, and I learned a ton about both about probability as well as
gambling and counting cards. I think that if I had to change one thing about this project,
it would be the amount of time we had to do this. I think that we could have done this
project with less time than we had. I also would have liked to present this at an
exhibition separate from all school. Other than these two very small issues, I really
enjoyed this project and highly recommend it for whoever teaches Math 3 next year.

Junior Year Reflection:

Kind of like last semester, I originally didn’t feel like Math 3 met my goals at all,
but as it went on, I realized my purpose for this class wasn’t to just take this class, and
that it actually was a great opportunity to prep for the SAT and help educate my peers
on the material. Once I changed the way I thought about this class, my SAT score
jumped up to a 1420 after this semester. This was 50 points better than any of my
previous scores on the SAT, and 220 points better than any of my PSAT’s. This helped
me to feel more confident in my math abilities at the Math 3 level.
I didn’t have homework for this class (because I am an advanced math student),
so it was pretty easy to balance it with my other classes. I am very thankful for this. This
class has prepared me for math 4 as a senior, but it wasn’t with content. This class
helped me find my place/purpose in a grade level math class, which was good because
I had been frustrated with classes like this in the past.