Unit Description

This unit introduces the concept of similarity.  Students will learn about enlargement, scale factors, area growth indirect measurement, and other similarity-related concepts.  Similarity is an example of proportionality.  Piaget considered that proportional reasoning is one of the six abilities that characterize formal –operational thinking.

Enduring Understandings

·         Principles of similarity are an integral part of the world around us, especially in the areas of architecture, art and design

·         Scaling makes things bigger or smaller, but it maintains the relationship between parts

·         Geometric figures can change position and maintain the same attributes in a plane (transformations)

Essential Questions

·         What does twice as big mean? What are we talking about?

·         When figures are similar, how are the lengths, area and scale factors related?

·         How does the transformation of a geometric figure affect its attributes?