Building Diego’s and Jada’s Shapes

This Instructional Activity is a part of the Lesson 6, Unit 7, Grade 7. The purpose of this activity is to reinforce that some conditions define a unique polygon while others do not. Students build polygons given only a description of their side lengths. They articulate that this is not enough information to guarantee that a pair of quadrilaterals are identical copies. On the other hand, triangles have a special property that three specific side lengths result in a unique triangle.