The Handshake Problem George Mason （乔治梅森握手的问题）.pdf

Teacher Lesson The Handshake Problem Tamisha is in a Geometry class with 25 students. On the first day of class her teacher asks everyone to shake hands and introduce themselves to each other. Tamisha wants to know how many handshakes had just been exchanged. Brainstorm some ways that you could use to find an answer to Tamisha’s question. Let students discuss methods that they might use to find an answer. Four possible methods are presented below. METHOD 1 One way is to have the students actually simulate the shaking of hands. Shake hands with everyone in the room. How many handshakes occurred? How did you keep track of your handshakes to make sure that you shook everyone’s hand exactly once? What was the total number of handshakes that occurred in the room? [This can be cumbersome, confusing and time-consuming but is workable if the group is not too big. Sometimes students do not come up with the correct 300 handshakes.] You might to use a subset of the class if you actually wanted to model the problem. METHOD 2 Let’s gather some data and make a table. Why not start with 2 students and work your way up? How many handshakes are needed for two students? Have students actually do this. How many handshakes are needed for three students to greet each other exactly once? How many handshakes for four students? Is there a pattern that is revealed? What is the total number of handshakes? Number of Number of Students Handshakes