Topics for October 14th

Today We Discussed:

Welcome back, students!  Today we continued our exploration of equations, but focused on literal equations and formulas.  Literal equations are just equations that have more than one variable.  Formulas are mathematical or scientific facts, rules, or relationships expressed with mathematical symbols.  Students have been using formulas for much of their mathematics studies, although they may not be aware.  In the last chapter, we used the formula for distance (d=rt) and also perimeter of a rectangle {P=2(l+w)}.

We can use our knowledge of solving equations to move variables around in literal equations or formulas, to solve for a particular variable.  The properties of equality (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and distributive) still apply here in these examples.

The first step in any solving equation problem it to identify the variable that you are solving for.  Once that is done, we follow the reverse order of operations to isolate the variable, and follow the same steps we used for solving multi-step equations.  As a reminder, here are those steps again:

Vocabulary: formula, literal equation

Sections Covered in Textbook:

2-6: Formulas (pages 111-114)

Resources & Tutorials:

1) What is a literal equation?
2) How do you solve a formula for a variable?
3) Summary of solving literal equations.

Assignments:

1) Chapter 2 Test Corrections due Thursday
2) Literal Equations Worksheet