Trig ID: Geometric Investigation

STUDENTS:

Interact with this applet for a few minutes. As you do, be sure to change the location of the LARGE PINK POINT a few times. After doing so, please answer the questions that follow. Note: In this animation, lines that appear to be parallel ARE parallel.

1.

Express the area of the original rectangle (at the beginning of the animation) in terms of .

2.

What is the area of the rectangle you see at the end of the animation? Express this area in terms of .

3.

What can we conclude about the areas of the rectangle shown at the beginning and end of this animation? How/why do we know this to be true?

4.

Given your results for (1), (2), and (3) above, write a relationship between the expressions (written in terms of ) you wrote in (1) and (2).