Amy Waits, a North Hardin High School teacher, described a problem‑based learning unit she used to teach the law of sines and cosines, saying the lesson engaged students with a real-world paleontology problem and produced measurable classroom engagement.

Waits told the Hardin County Board that she began the unit with a scenario about dinosaur footprints and asked students to determine a "PACE angle" from footprint images; the non‑right-angle problem required students to apply the law of sines and cosines and to discover for themselves what additional information they needed. "The kids are going to apply their skills to develop some kind of solution," Waits said as she described the classroom activities.

Nut graf: The presentation illustrated the district’s push to broaden instructional approaches by using shorter, focused problem‑based lessons that still cover required standards. Waits said the unit covered the same standards as a traditional lesson but used inquiry, guided activities and community‑partner input to increase student participation and retention.

Waits described classroom elements: student research on footprint photos, hands‑on models (she used Lego dinosaurs as manipulatives), and a remote presentation from a New Tech coach near fossil beds. She said the students completed assessments at the end of the unit and that the district’s collaboration collection site will host the lesson and the resources used. The teacher told the board that when the package is posted, it will include links to materials and supporting resources so other teachers districtwide can use the lesson.

Board members asked about resource access; Waits said the lesson materials — including a formula crib sheet she used — will be linked on the district’s collaboration site by grade and content area so teachers across Hardin County can adopt the lesson. One board member praised the approach, saying external evaluations show greater retention when math instruction is delivered through applied activities rather than only practice problems.

Ending: The board said the district will continue to build the collaboration site and expected a demonstration of the early stages of the collection in the coming weeks.