Modeling the Tides
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Contributing Teacher: Geoff Hagopian, College of the
Desert, December, 2, 2000
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Suggested Grade Level: This activity is appropriate
for precalculus or trigonometry, but could easily be adapted to calculus
and beyond.
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Time Required: About a week.
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Materials and Technology Needed: Internet access and
pencil/paper.
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Safety Considerations: As always, keep clear of slackers
and Dubya backers.
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Teacher Preparation: Carefully read through and perform
all the exercises before foisting this on innocent students.
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Objectives and Learning Outcomes: Students will learn
how to fit parameters to superimposed sinusoids to model tidal motion..
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Purpose: The purpose of this project is to discover
how to sinusoids can be combined to produce a wide variety of curves and
to learn how the tides are affected by the sun, the moon, and the geography
of Baja California.
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Procedure: See this page.
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Results/Analysis: Some answers are given in the procedure
section, others are readily available in the references supplied.
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Teacher Reflections: I love this stuff! Really
terrific how it ties in math/physics with earth science in a way that is
important and relevant to people everywhere.
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Extensions: Lots of room for expansion here.
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Assessment Suggestions: Many different levels of approach
here from basic arithmetic to partial differential equations. All
depends on how you ask what questions.
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Standards Addressed: Yeah, I know this is important,
but it's late in the game and I need to be done.
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References/Resources: Included throughout..