This unit is going to look at how to draw and interpret scale drawings. We are going to consolidate students understanding by applying the skills they learn in a range of real life contexts.
We focus developing an understanding that scale drawing is an aspect of proportional reasoning and develop learners’ ability to apply their understanding of scale drawings to real-life situations in a range of contexts. The context used are one’s students are likely to be most familiar with, but they are just some of the examples that you could use when teaching this topic.
Extended learners will also apply their understanding to interpret the effect on area of Scale drawings.
Proportional reasoning is an area of mathematics that can causes problems in terms of conceptual understanding for learners who sometimes fail to make links to other topics within the mathematics curriculum such as similarity and scale factors.
Proportional reasoning is often more apparent in relation to visual images, recognising shapes that have been enlarged or reduced, than it is in word problems that require interpretation relative to the context. Where students have had a limited exposure to the skills and strategies needed to enlarge or reduce shapes they will struggle when they are asked to construct and interpret scale drawing and misunderstandings and misconceptions will develop.
Lesson 1 of this unit of work revisits learners' understanding of scale factors when solving problems involving similar shapes.
We then build on this in the next two lessons to make sure learners have secured the link between their understanding of ratio and enlargement and scale drawings.
This unit of work is just one of several approaches that you could take when teaching this topic, and you should aim to adapt the resources to match the ability level of your learners, as well as your school context.