Area of Convex Regions as a Unifying Theme for the Review of Some Topics in First-Year College Courses. Classroom Notes

Teachers of first-year college mathematics and engineering courses must often spend considerable time reviewing material originally taught in high school. Instead of this being a mere exercise in repetition, this article suggests that such a review can enrich and revitalize by unifying some of the subjects that need to be re-taught. In the example presented, the subjects in question are absolute values, graphs and solutions of equations, and domains of definition. These are unified by the problem of finding an analytic expression for a square and triangle and their interiors. In the course of the development, basic notions such as the additive property of areas and convexity are introduced. The approach presented in the article was tried with secondary school teachers participating in professional development workshops and with students at a technical college; the teachers and students responded enthusiastically to the material.