Johnston SeniorHigh School

Mrs. Iavarone's Class is Learning About Parabolas
They took pictures of parabolas in their environment. The arch on a playground, t
he Champion clothing logo, the front door of their home, the top of a stackable chair,
the Newport Bridge.....so creative.
Then they used a computer program DESMOS to measure the parabola.
Parabolas are a central topic in high school algebra classes, but, perhaps because of the rigid
separation between algebra and geometry classes in the US secondary curriculum,
we do not usually treat them as geometric objects. While most teachers are aware of some
of the parabola's geometric properties, few of us are familiar with the proofs of those properties.