1. © Nuffield Foundation 2011 Free-Standing Mathematics Activity Shorter by helicopter?

2. © Nuffield Foundation 2011 How much further is it by road than by helicopter? Image © RaimondSpekking / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0 & GFDL

3. © Nuffield Foundation 2011 Is it usually quicker to go by helicopter? Why? Is there a connection between the direct distance and the distance by road? Image by Philip Hallilng reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike 2.0 Generic License In this activity you will use a graph to try to find a connection

4. © Nuffield Foundation 2011 How to find the road distance Think about How far is it from Bristol to Plymouth? Think about How far is it from Bristol to Plymouth?

5. © Nuffield Foundation 2011 How to find the distance by helicopter Use a ruler to measure the distance on a map Use the scale to find the actual distance Think about How do you use the scale to work out the actual distance? Think about How do you use the scale to work out the actual distance? Ruler image by Luigi Chiesa shared under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike 3.0 Unported LicenseMap image by Anonymous101 shared under Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike 3.0 Unported License

6. © Nuffield Foundation 2011 At the end of the activity Why did the graph go through (0,0)? Did you find a connection between the distances by helicopter and by road? If you have found a rule, how can you check that it works? Would your results have been more accurate if you had used a larger scale map?