Supreme Court Handshakes

Developed as part of the Math Circles of Inquiry project, this session is a good introduction to the 8th grade or Algebra Math curriculum using inquiry based instruction. Students are asked to use their problem solving skills in order to determine the relationship between the number of Supreme Court justices and handshakes that occur when each pair shakes hands exactly once. Students will begin exploring with simpler numbers and work up to creating an algebraic expression to represent the function. This lesson allows for multiple representations by using a table, list, circle diagram, matrix and manipulatives.

Algebra / Arithmetic
Combinatorics
Problem Solving / General

Manipulatives
Try a Smaller Problem

MP1 - Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
MP4 - Model with mathematics.
MP5 - Use appropriate tools strategically.
MP7 - Look for and make use of structure.
MP8 - Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.