The purpose of this activity is for the students to investigate the significance of parabolas to projectile motion and gaming. Students will use only the vertex form of a parabola to determine a variety of parabolas that will accomplish given tasks. Then, the class will discuss the equations of different parabolas to determine the effectiveness of different trajectories in Angry Birds.
Students should use the sliders to adjust their parabolas, and a final important point of discussion is how the parameters of a, h, and k affect the parabola. A question to ask students: How/why did you adjust your parameters to change your parabola?
