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SECONDARY MATH I // MODULE 1

SEQUENCES – 1.1

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1.1 Checkerboard Borders
A Develop Understanding Task

In preparation for back to school, the school administration plans to replace the tile in the
cafeteria. They would like to have a checkerboard pattern of tiles two rows wide as a surround
for the tables and serving carts.
Below is an example of the boarder that the administration is thinking of using to surround a
square 5 x 5 set of tiles.
A. Find the number of colored tiles in the checkerboard border. Track your thinking and find a
way of calculating the number of colored tiles in the border that is quick and efficient. Be
prepared to share your strategy and justify your work.

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B. The contractor that was hired to lay the tile in the cafeteria is trying to generalize a way
to calculate the number of colored tiles needed for a checkerboard border surrounding
a square of tiles with any dimensions. To represent this general situation, the contractor
started sketching the square below.
Find an expression for the number of colored border tiles needed for any N x N square
center.

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CC BY Davide Della Casa

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1.2 Growing Dots
A Develop Understanding Task

1. Describe the pattern that you see in the sequence of figures above.

2. Assuming the pattern continues in the same way, how many dots are there at 3 minutes?

3. How many dots are there at 100 minutes?

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4. How many dots are there at t minutes? Solve the problems by your preferred method. Your
solution should indicate how many dots will be in the pattern at 3 minutes, 100 minutes,
and t minutes. Be sure to show how your solution relates to the picture and how you
arrived at your solution.

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1.3 Growing, Growing Dots

CC BY ms. neaux neaux nope

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A Develop Understanding Task

At the At one minute At two minutes

beginning

At three minutes At four minutes

1. Describe and label the pattern of change you see in the above sequence of figures.

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2. Assuming the sequence continues in the same way, how many dots are there at 5 minutes?

3. Write a recursive formula to describe how many dots there will be after t minutes.

4. Write an explicit formula to describe how many dots there will be after t minutes.

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CC BY New York National Guard

SEQUENCES – 1.4

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1.4 Scott’s Workout
A Solidify Understanding Task

Scott has decided to add push-ups to his daily exercise routine. He is keeping track of the number of
push-ups he completes each day in the bar graph below, with day one showing he completed three
push-ups. After four days, Scott is certain he can continue this pattern of increasing the number of
push-ups he completes each day.

1 2 3 4
1. How many push-ups will Scott do on day 10?

2. How many push-ups will Scott do on day n?

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3. Model the number of push-ups Scott will complete on any given day. Include both explicit and
recursive equations.

4. Aly is also including push-ups in her workout and says she does more push-ups than Scott
because she does fifteen push-ups every day. Is she correct? Explain.

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SEQUENCES – 1.5

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CC BY Thomas Kohler
1.5 Don’t Break the Chain
A Solidify Understanding Task

Maybe you’ve received an email like this before:

Hi! My name is Bill Weights, founder of Super Scooper Ice Cream. I am offering you a gift certificate
for our signature “Super Bowl” (a $4.95 value) if you forward this letter to 10 people.

When you have finished sending this letter to 10 people, a screen will come up. It will be your Super
Bowl gift certificate. Print that screen out and bring it to your local Super Scooper Ice Cream store.
The server will bring you the most wonderful ice cream creation in the world—a Super Bowl with
three yummy ice cream flavors and three toppings!

This is a sales promotion to get our name out to young people around the country. We believe this
project can be a success, but only with your help. Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Bill Weights
Founder of Super Scooper Ice Cream

These chain emails rely on each person that receives the email to forward it on. Have you ever
wondered how many people might receive the email if the chain remains unbroken? To figure this
out, assume that it takes a day for the email to be opened, forwarded, and then received by the next
person. On day 1, Bill Weights starts by sending the email out to his 8 closest friends. They each
forward it to 10 people so that on day 2 it is received by 80 people. The chain continues unbroken.

1. How many people will receive the email on day 7?

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2. How many people with receive the email on day n? Explain your answer with as many
representations as possible.

3. If Bill gives away a Super Bowl that costs $4.95 to every person that receives the email
during the first week, how much will he have spent?

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1.6 Something to Chew On

A Solidify Understanding Task

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CC BY lilCystar
The Food-Mart grocery store has a candy machine like the one
pictured here. Each time a child inserts a quarter, 7 candies come
out of the machine. The machine holds 15 pounds of candy. Each
pound of candy contains about 180 individual candies.

1. Represent the number of candies in the machine for any given number of customers. About
how many customers will there be before the machine is empty?

2. Represent the amount of money in the machine for any given number of customers.

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3. To avoid theft, the store owners don’t want to let too much money collect in the machine, so
they take all the money out when they think the machine has about $25 in it. The tricky
part is that the store owners can’t tell how much money is actually in the machine without
opening it up, so they choose when to remove the money by judging how many candies are
left in the machine. About how full should the machine look when they take the money out?
How do you know?

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1.7 Chew On This

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CC BY Frank Jacobi
A Solidify Understanding Task

Mr. and Mrs. Gloop want their son, Augustus, to do his homework every day. Augustus loves to eat
candy, so his parents have decided to motivate him to do his homework by giving him candies for
each day that the homework is complete. Mr. Gloop says that on the first day that Augustus turns in
his homework, he will give him 10 candies. On the second day he promises to give 20 candies, on
the third day he will give 30 candies, and so on.

1. Write both a recursive and an explicit formula that shows the number of candies that
Augustus earns on any given day with his father’s plan.

2. Use a formula to find how many candies Augustus will get on day 30 in this plan.

Augustus looks in the mirror and decides that he is gaining weight. He is afraid that all that candy
will just make it worse, so he tells his parents that it would be ok if they just give him 1 candy on the
first day, 2 on the second day, continuing to double the amount each day as he completes his
homework. Mr. and Mrs. Gloop like Augustus’ plan and agree to it.

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3. Model the amount of candy that Augustus would get each day he reaches his goals with the
new plan.

4. Use your model to predict the number of candies that Augustus would earn on the 30th day
with this plan.

5. Write both a recursive and an explicit formula that shows the number of candies that
Augustus earns on any given day with this plan.

Augustus is generally selfish and somewhat unpopular at school. He decides that he could improve
his image by sharing his candy with everyone at school. When he has a pile of 100,000 candies, he
generously plans to give away 60% of the candies that are in the pile each day. Although Augustus

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may be earning more candies for doing his homework, he is only giving away candies from the pile
that started with 100,000. (He’s not that generous.)

6. How many pieces of candy will be left on day 4? On day 8?

7. Model the amount of candy that would be left in the pile each day.

8. How many days will it take for the candy to be gone?

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SEQUENCES – 1.8

1.8 What Comes Next? What

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CC BY Hiroaki Maeda
Comes Later?

A Practice Understanding Task

For each of the following tables,

• describe how to find the next term in the sequence,

• write a recursive rule for the function,
• describe how the features identified in the recursive rule can be used to write an explicit
rule for the function, and
• write an explicit rule for the function.
• identify if the function is arithmetic, geometric or neither

Example:

x y • To find the next term: add 3 to the previous term

0 5
• Recursive rule:! 0 = 5, ! ! = ! ! − 1 + 3
1 8
2 11 • To find the nth term: start with 5 and add 3 n times
3 14 • Explicit rule: ! ! = 5 + 3!
4 ?
… … • Arithmetic , geometric, or neither? Arithmetic
n ?

Function A
x y
1. How to find the next term: _______________________________________ 1 5
2 10
2. Recursive rule: _____________________________________________ 3 20
4 40
3. To find the nth term: _________________________________________ 5 ?
… …
4. Explicit rule: _______________________________________________ n ?

5. Arithmetic, geometric, or neither? _____________________________

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Function B
x y
6. How to find the next term: _________________________________________ 1 -8
2 -17
7. Recursive rule: _______________________________________________ 3 -26
4 -35
8. To find the nth term: ___________________________________________ 5 -44
6 -53
9. Explicit rule: _________________________________________________ … …
n
10. Arithmetic, geometric, or neither? _______________________________

Function C
x y
11. To find the next term: ______________________________________________ 1 2
2 6
12. Recursive rule: ____________________________________________________ 3 18
4 54
13. To find the nth term: ________________________________________________ 5 162
6 486
14. Explicit rule: ______________________________________________________ … …
n
15. Arithmetic, geometric, or neither? ____________________________________

Function D
x y
16. To find the next term: ________________________________________
1 3
2 15
17. Recursive rule: ______________________________________________ 3 27
4 39
18. To find the nth term: __________________________________________ 5 51
6 ?
19. Explicit rule: ________________________________________________ … …
n ?
20. Arithmetic, geometric, or neither? ______________________________

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Function E x y
0 1
1 3
21. To find the next term: ________________________________________ 1
5
22. Recursive rule: ______________________________________________ 2 1
2
5
23. To find the nth term: __________________________________________ 3 4
2
5
24. Explicit rule: ________________________________________________ 4 2
3
5
25. Arithmetic, geometric, or neither? ______________________________ 5 4
… …
n

Function F
x y
26. To find the next term: ________________________________________ 0 3
1 4
27. Recursive rule: ______________________________________________ 2 7
3 12
28. To find the nth term: __________________________________________ 4 19
5 ?
29. Explicit rule: ________________________________________________ … …
n ?
30. Arithmetic, geometric, or neither? ______________________________

Function G
x y
31. To find the next term: _______________________________________ 1 10
2 2
32. Recursive rule: _____________________________________________ 3 2
5
33. To find the nth term: _________________________________________ 4 2
25
34. Explicit rule: _______________________________________________ 5 2
125
35. Arithmetic, geometric, or neither? ______________________________ 6 2
625
… …
n

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Function H x y
36. To find the next term: ________________________________________ 1 -1
2 0.2
37. Recursive rule: ______________________________________________ 3 -0.04
38. To find the nth term: __________________________________________ 4 0.008
5 -0.0016
39. Explicit rule: ________________________________________________ 6 0.00032
… …
40. Arithmetic, geometric, or neither? ______________________________
n

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SEQUENCES – 1.9

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1.9 What Does It Mean?

CC BY Tim Evanson
A Solidify Understanding Task

Each of the tables below represents an arithmetic sequence.

Find the missing terms in the sequence, showing your
method.

1.

x 1 2 3
y 5 11

2.

x 1 2 3 4 5
y 18 -10

3.

x 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
y 12 -6

4. Describe your method for finding the missing terms. Will the method always work? How do you
know?

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Here are a few more arithmetic sequences with missing terms. Complete each table, either using
the method you developed previously or by finding a new method.

5.

x 1 2 3 4
y 50 86

6.

x 1 2 3 4 5 6
y 40 10

7.

x 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
y -23 5

8. The missing terms in an arithmetic sequence are called “arithmetic means”. For example, in the
problem above, you might say, “Find the 6 arithmetic means between -23 and 5”. Describe a
method that will work to find arithmetic means and explain why this method works.

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CC BY JD Hancock
1.10 Geometric Meanies
A Practice Understanding Task

Each of the tables below represents a geometric

sequence. Find the missing terms in the sequence,
showing your method.

Table 1

x 1 2 3
y 3 12

Is the missing term that you identified the only answer? Why or why not?

Table 2

x 1 2 3 4
y 7 875

Are the missing terms that you identified the only answers? Why or why not?

Table 3

x 1 2 3 4 5
y 6 96

Are the missing terms that you identified the only answers? Why or why not?

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Table 4

x 1 2 3 4 5 6
y 4 972

Are the missing terms that you identified the only answers? Why or why not?

A. Describe your method for finding the geometric means.

B. How can you tell if there will be more than one solution for the geometric means?

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SEQUENCES – 1.11

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1.11 I Know … What Do You

CC BY Jim Larrison
Know?
A Practice Understanding Task

In each of the problems below I share some of the information that I know about a sequence. Your
job is to add all the things that you know about the sequence from the information that I have given.
Depending on the sequence, some of the things you may be able to figure out for the sequence are:

• a table;
• a graph;
• an explicit equation;
• a recursive formula;
• the constant ratio or constant difference between consecutive terms;
• any terms that are missing;
• the type of sequence;
• a story context.

Try to find as many as you can for each sequence, but you must have at least 4 things for each.

1. I know that: the recursive formula for the sequence is ! 1 = −12, ! ! = ! ! − 1 + 4

What do you know?

2. I know that: the first 5 terms of the sequence are 0, -6, -12, -18, -24 . . .
What do you know?

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3. I know that: the explicit formula for the sequence is ! ! = −10(3)!

What do you know?

4. I know that: The first 4 terms of the sequence are 2, 3, 4.5, 6.75 . . .
What do you know?

5. I know that: the sequence is arithmetic and ! 3 = 10 and ! 7 = 26

What do you know?

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6. I know that: the sequence is a model for the perimeter of the following figures:

Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3

Length of each side = 1

What do you know?

7. I know that: it is a sequence where ! 1 = 5 and the constant ratio between terms is -2.
What do you know?

8. I know that: the sequence models the value of a car that originally cost $26,500, but loses
10% of its value each year.
What do you know?

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!
9. I know that: the first term of the sequence is -2, and the fifth term is - .
!

What do you know?

10. I know that: a graph of the sequence is:

What do you know?

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