Take a radical look at square roots. The presentation examines square roots as the lengths of the sides of a square with a given area on the coordinate plane. Using this method, it is clear why the square root of a number can be positive or negative. This interpretations shows why in the real numbers, there is no square root of a negative number.

Concepts

square roots, squares, area of squares, perfect squares, radicand, radicals

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Additional Tags

math

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Instructional Ideas

• Use the areas of squares to determine the first 20 perfect squares
• Lead a brainstorming session on how to determine the square root of a non-perfect square using areas of squares

Classroom Considerations

• The class should know what it means to square a number

• This video is hosted on YouTube

Pros

• Includes a graphical display of 4-D to show it is hard to imagine
• Contains closed captioning

Cons

• None

Common Core

8.EE.A.2 MP5