Patterns and Functions

Activity 5: The Twin’s Towers

27

3.Explain to students that the process they have been using to find successive terms in a sequence of numbers is called recursion. Recursion means that each term is built from the term before it. This recursive process allows students to solve more complicated, real-life problems.

Wrap-up

Discuss the power of Ans with your students. You could have solved all of the situations examined by making lists of each sequence, term after term. With the power of technology, terms can be generated much faster and difficult real-world problems can be solved.

Assessment Suggestions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 story

2 story

3 story

 

 

 

 

or

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 story

2 story

3 story

Have students write the recursive pattern they would use to generate how many blocks they need for each tower.

Ask students:

How many blocks do the following need: 1 story, 8 stories, 150 stories, 99 stories?

If you use the following number of blocks, what story are you on: 56, 110, 221?

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