Resumen de Using the Pottery Wheel to Explore Topics in Calculus

Elin Farnell, Marie Snipes

• Students sometimes struggle with visualizing the three-dimensional solids encountered in certain integral problems in a calculus class. We present a project in which students create solids of revolution with clay on a pottery wheel and estimate the volumes of these objects using Riemann sums. In addition to giving students an opportunity for tactile learning, this project focuses students� attention on concepts relating to (i) functions that have no algebraic formula; (ii) notation and construction of Riemann sums; and (iii) error estimation. We will describe our project design, implementation, and suggested adaptation