With all the (understandable) iPhone hype lately, I couldn’t help but fall for this math-potential-packed image:
#WCYDWT ? (What can you do with this?)
Attached below is a PDF I made that displays each of these iPhone models to their accurate sizes. I made the image more transparent to save us all some ink. Would love to hear back if you use these images with students. Happy hypotenuse!
I’m entering some proportional reasoning in the next week or so. Comparing the proportionality of the phones seems like the first step. Hoping to think of some other ways to extend also!
Thanks for sharing!
Have you come up with any other ideas since posting this?
The diagonal measurements made me think of the Pythagorean Theorem. Perhaps I could provide one of the “leg” measurements for each phone, have students solve for the other leg, then measure to confirm?
I think it may be surprising that the diagonal is what is measured in terms of screen-size. Do students know that a 52″ flatscreen TV means its diagonal measures 52″? Well, they’d know after working with this visual. 🙂
Area comes to mind as well – how much more screen do you really get from a 5s to a 6 to a 6+?
Comparing prices and finding a unit rate per phone would be fun too – how much does each iPhone cost per square inch of screen? 😉
I wonder if students would notice that the dates on the iPhone screens differ. Not much math value there, but Apple doesn’t do anything by accident 😉 I have a feeling middle school students would notice that.
Of course, it would be fun to have students generate questions too. They’d likely come up with things we’d never expect!
Pythagorean Theorem would fit in well with the proportional reasoning side of things.
Also like the idea of area, since that is what matters on your phone screen.
Hmmm, sounds like we have another task to put together!