Lesson Plan: Numerical Integration: The Trapezoidal Rule Mathematics
This lesson plan includes the objectives, prerequisites, and exclusions of the lesson teaching students how to approximate definite integrals using the trapezoidal rule and estimate the error when using it.
Objectives
Students will be able to
- understand the derivation of the formula used for the trapezoid rule,
- approximate the area between a curve and the by dividing it into a given number of trapezoids and by using the formula,
- identify whether an approximation using the trapezoidal rule is an overestimate or an underestimate,
- calculate the percentage error when using the trapezoidal rule compared to the exact value of the integral.
Prerequisites
Students should already be familiar with
- finding the area of a trapezoid,
- finding definite integrals.
Exclusions
Students will not cover
- Riemann sums.