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Walk and Ride

How far have these students walked by the time the teacher's car reaches them after their bus broke down?

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You Tell the Story

Can you create a story that would describe the movement of the man shown on these graphs? Use the interactivity to try out our ideas.

Take Your Dog for a Walk

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

It would be a good idea to try You Tell the Story before tackling this problem. If possible, it would be great to introduce the class to these ideas using a sensor, which gives an output on a distance/time graph by recording how far an object is from the sensor. (It can also be linked to a computer so that the display can be viewed easily by all.) The idea of this problem is for children to get a feel for what a distance/time graph can tell them, and this is likely to involve a great deal of discussion in pairs, groups and as a whole class.
Here are some graphs for you to try to reproduce. Can Mr Pearson create the same graphwith different walks? Can you describe what things you can change and what things have to stay the same?

Graph 1
Graph 1
Graph 2
Graph 6
Graph 3
Graph 2
Graph 4
Graph 3
Graph 5
Graph 4
Graph 6
Graph 5

The NRICH Project aims to enrich the mathematical experiences of all learners. To support this aim, members of the NRICH team work in a wide range of capacities, including providing professional development for teachers wishing to embed rich mathematical tasks into everyday classroom practice. More information on many of our other activities can be found here.
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NRICH is part of the family of activities in the Millennium Mathematics Project.