OBJECTIVE

Students will utilize the principles of arcs, tangents, circumference, radius, and circular area to design a “Pizza Garden”. Students will see how moving from equations to real life presents challenges, and at the same time how important it is to know the equations to make the application work.

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

How can we use math skills in everyday life? How can we design a garden to efficiently grow food for the school?

MATERIALS

• Long string/rope
• Wooden stakes
• Trowels
• Rakes
• Shovels
• Watering cans
• Basil plants
• Tomato plants
• Oregano plants
• Wheat seeds/starts
• Pepper plants
• Onion plants

PROCEDURE

Introduction:
Review math and circles — area, circumference, pi
Introduce ideas of arcs and tangents as a way to divide circles , an 8th grade concept
they haven’t studied before, which prepares them for the math they’ll do next year.
Describe the size of the circle we will be dividing into sections for the pizza garden,
and ask class how many “slices” we’ll need.

Activity:
Go outside and lay out the garden, using wooden stakes and string as “arcs and
tangents.” Ask students to stand in a circle and plot out the garden together. Based
on the ingredients, students must decide how much space/how many slices each
ingredient requires.
Back in the classroom, students may use graph paper to plot out the garden and

create a garden design. These will be used as their plans for the following class.
The following class, students plant the garden, according to their plans.
Wrap up/ Assessment:
An overall assessment piece is the students’ garden plan. Each student hands in a
circular garden plan, labeled with the location of pizza ingredients.
Students write about how math can be applied in daily life. Students may also
complete a worksheet based on the concepts of arcs, tangents, radius and
circumference.

Extensions:

• Harvest from the garden (fall)
• Make sauce from the ingredients (fall)
• Make pizza and freeze it (fall). Cafeteria directors may be able to use it in the
  school lunch.
• After harvesting and eating the harvest, go back outside, clean up the garden,
  and plant a cover crop for the spring so it can all happen again next year (late
  fall/early winter).