Previously, students used the hands of an analog clock to describe and compare the sizes of angles. In this lesson, students learn about degrees as a unit for measuring angles.

In the first activity, students are introduced to 360 degrees as the measurement of a full rotation of a ray about a fixed point. They use this to interpret and describe other benchmark angle measurements (90°, 180°, 270°). They then use these benchmarks to estimate and sketch new angles with given measurements in degrees.

Next, students use these reference angles to create an angle measurement tool from paper. They partition the straight angle of a semicircle into smaller angles by folding. In doing so, they draw from their experience with the clock, where each hour or each minute can be thought of as equal-size parts around the center point of the clock.

Throughout the lesson, listen for the way students make connections to their work with clocks, and to their understanding of fractions of a circle, as they reason about how to estimate and sketch angles in degrees, using an understanding that a full rotation is 360 degrees.