Angry Birds and Parabolas

This past week I was charged with the task of finding a challenge for our students who have exhibited mastery of their grade level content and help fill some gaps they may have when transitioning into high school.  I sat down with my 8 students and asked them what topics they had heard of and were curious about.  They all said parabolas right away then listed topics in geometry like sin, cos, tan and soh cah toa. They mentioned box and whisker plots, scatter plots, and regression.

I thought about all of the topics they mentioned and what would be most important for them to know going into high school.  Geometry is covered during most student's sophomore years and freshman year focuses mainly on Algebra.  We would be covering statistics during our last quarter of the year so I knew I could introduce them to the different plots and regressions they asked about.

We all decided to investigate parabolas.

I wanted to set them up with a project that would be fun for them to investigate and asked them if they've ever heard of the game Angry Birds.  That got their attention.

I found a website that helps you understand how a quadratic equation graphs a parabola onto the coordinate grid using that trajectory of the Angry Birds

Angry Birds Training


It started off with Jedi training to model how the parabola can be stretched.


Then it shows how to identify the vertex from the equation.




After the students get some practice with manipulating the parabolas they are challenged with coming up with an equation to map the Angry Birds onto the correct trajectory.

I'm looking forward to investigating these advanced concepts with my Elite 8th Graders to help set them up for success in high school.

The students will use these websites to help practice these concepts and keep a journal of their experience throughout the investigation.