A Short post on Logistic Functions

Just a little foldable....

Students have already seen logistics in Algebra One (most of them) and Algebra 2. But just brushed upon them. And they really are cool. Because if you think about it they really are much more realistic than exponential growth. I mean what real life situation really follows a true exponential growth pattern. Somewhere its got to level out due to natural restrictions in the environment.

We use this ppt slide to discuss just that fact in my Algebra One classes.

So in PreCalculus, we don't directly teach these again. But I want the students to have a full inventory of the parent functions in their ISNs. Previously we did parent function entries in this whole beginning section of "parent functions". And I had them leave an empty half page on the logistic page. We were saving it for this foldable. 

It is designed to give some context to a crazy looking function equation. They will see logistics again and they are cool realistic functions to be aware of. And many students like to throw in a little piecewise logistic function curve in their graphing calculator picture project. So this little review gives them enough information to have  a little useful knowledge about this function type.

Here is the inside of the foldable. 

Students worked in their groups on this. It was interesting to hear the conversations they were having about adjusting the window. One student had both their xmax & ymax = 1,500,000. Good thinking for the ymax but I don't think Dallas will exist 1.5 million years after 1900 but perhaps that is pessimistic of me.

So that's it, short & sweet.

All my foldable files for precalculus unit 1 (function characteristics) are found here.

And here is where you will find my Algebra One logistic materials if you need some extra stuff.