Emily and Mauricio revise their drawing from Episode 3, this time showing the meaning of 24 in2 as 24 units where each unit is a square with side length of 1 inch.
Episode Supports
Students’ Conceptual Challenges
This episode features Emily and Mauricio redrawing their rectangle to find 24 squares inside of the pizza slice. They do this by partitioning each dimension into inch-long segments. This process does not seem challenging to the students, yet it seems to help each of them better understand what a square inch is, what it looks like, and what it measures. In other words, through the process of redrawing their rectangle, Mauricio and Emily seem to build more productive ideas about the meaning of a square inch as a measurement unit for area.
Focus Questions
For use in a classroom, pause the video and ask these questions:
[Pause the video at 3:13] What similarities and differences do you notice between the two drawings made by Mauricio and Emily? How does their second drawing illustrate 24 in2?
[Pause the video at 9:03] Emily and Mauricio said that the inch squares are “more equal.” What do you think they meant by that?
Supporting Dialogue
[Pause the video at 5:05] Tell a partner what is meant by an inch squared. Tell your partner how that differs from the rectangles Emily and Mauricio drew in the previous episode.
After the video, talk with a partner to answer these questions: What can you measure with inches? What can you measure with square inches?
