Basic Triangle Congruence

Lesson Plan
Developed by CSSMA Staff Drafted August 2015

Prescribed Learning Outcomes: Introduce students to the concept of triangle congruence and
teach them about the congruency conditions of SSS and SAS.

This short lesson is to be delivered through a series of interactive, hands-on activities.

Materials needed: Straws, tape, protractor, ruler, scissors, and construction paper or cardstock

Warmup
Q: Whats a triangle made of?
- Possible answer: 3 sides and 3 angles

Teacher: Lets play a game. Cut out a triangle and give me its side lengths. Without looking at
your triangle, I claim that I can make the same triangle myself.

(Teacher uses straws of the given lengths and constructs a triangle, then show that they are
equal by laying it on top of their triangle)

After students are convinced, do the same except ask them for two sides and the angle between
these two sides (students should use the protractor to determine this angle).

A note on technicality:
Q: What does it mean for two things to be equal?
- Possible answers:
- Numbers: 3 = 3, always the same. This is the logic that we use to solve equations.
- Geometrically:
- same shape

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 - same size
- Bonus: can it be rotated? Reflected?
- yes!

In geometry, we use the word congruent to mean equal.

SSS
(Teacher hands out sets of straws of equal lengths, say 2 straws each of 4, 5, and 7 cm, ideally
each set is of a different color. Asks the student, can you make two different triangles from each
set?

After students have had a chance to try, make sure they are convinced that such is impossible.
Ask them to measure the angles of each triangle. What do they find?)

Definition of Congruence

is congruent to

Two geometric objects are congruent, i.e. equal, if, after rotations and translations, they
physically occupy the same space.
- Intuitive definition: For triangles (and other flat objects), we can cut them out and
them on top of each other. If they fit exactly, they are congruent.
physically stack

Triangles are congruent

when all corresponding sides and interior angles are congruent.

Q: What is the relationship between the areas of congruent triangles?

If we know all three sides and all three angles of two triangles, we can figure out if they are
congruent or not. As the previous exercise shows, however, just knowing three sides is
sufficient---the triangle is set in place if we fix all three of its side lengths.
- Intuitively, once you draw the boundary, the inside is fixed.
- This is called SSS Congruence, where S stands for side

SAS Congruence

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 1. Take 2 of the straws, place them on a piece of paper, and form a 60 degree angle between
them.

2. Trace the third side on paper, then try rotating and flipping the two straws while keeping
the angle constant and trace the third side. Measure the length each time.
3. Do the third side always have the same length? What does this tell you? What about the
other angles?
4. Are the triangles always congruent?
5. Is this true in general, if we change the numbers?

This is called SAS congruence, where A stands for angle. Note that the A is between the two Ss,
so we need to know two sides and the angle between them.

Give students the handout titled Thought Questions & Classroom Activities. Teaching ends
here, and now, allow students to think about the questions in the Thought Questions &
Classroom Activities handout for the remaining duration of class. Allow students to discuss
problems with each other as collaborative learning can be very effective! If students do not
finish the problems on this handout by the end of class, assign the rest as homework.

At the beginning of the next class, discuss some of the problems on the Thought Questions &
Classroom Activities handout. The problems on this handout can be quite theoretical, so we
actually do not expect every student to be able to provide a fully justified answer to every
problem. The goal of this handout is to encourage students to think more abstractly about the
concept of congruent triangles, so when you discuss these problems, use physical models to help
you illustrate the concepts.

The next logical step after teaching SSS and SAS is to move onto ASA, AAS, and HS, the other
methods of checking whether two triangles are congruent or not. The Food for Thought handout
is a good jumping off point for that. Use it during the next class period as a starting point of
discussion for other relevant concepts in congruent triangle! An answer key has been included at
the end of this lesson plan to offer some of the answers that we believe are reasonable.

Copyright Canadian Secondary School Mathematics Association. 2015-2016. All rights reserved.
 Thought Questions & Classroom Activities
Name: ______________________________
1. In class, we discussed conditions for two triangles to be congruent. Now, lets look at
squares: what must be true for two squares to be congruent?

2. Play the warm-up game without straws: in other words, after you are given the three side
lengths, try to directly cut out such a triangle. Is it easy to do so?

3. In SAS, we stressed that the angle has to be between the two sides. Is this necessary? As
in, if you know two sides of a triangle, a and b, and an angle A between sides b and c (the
unknown side), can you make two different triangles?
- It may help to draw side b and angle A on paper, with a ray extending in the
direction of the third side coming from angle A, then pivot a straw of length a and
see where the third side lies.

4. You learned about SSS and SAS today, both of which are methods of showing two
triangles as being congruent. It turns out there are more methods of doing so, but they all
require us knowing 3 facts about the triangles sides or angles. Why do you think this is
so?

5. Suppose I have two triangles whose respective angles are equal. Do you know if they are
congruent? How do you know?

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 Food for Thought
Name: ______________________________
1. What do you think are other ways of showing that two triangles are congruent to each
other?

2. For two triangles to be congruent, they must share a side of equal length. Is the reverse
statement true: in other words, are two triangles that share one side of equal length
always congruent?

3. We know that SSS shows two triangles to be congruent. If you have two triangles such
that at least one side length differ (so SSS is not satisfied), are those two triangles
necessarily not congruent?

4. Create two congruent triangles, A and B. Now make a triangle C with the same side
lengths as triangle B. Whats the relationship between A and C? Why?

5. Sammy tells you that he has two triangles with the following measurements:

Side a Side b Side c Angle A Angle B Angle C

Triangle 1 5 7 9 80 70 30

Triangle 2 5 7 10 85 65 30

If he uses SSS, from problem 3, the two triangles are not congruent; however, if he uses
SAS with sides a, b, and angle C (the angle opposite side C), he get that they are
congruent. Whats going on here?

Copyright Canadian Secondary School Mathematics Association. 2015-2016. All rights reserved.
 Thought Questions & Classroom Activities
Suggested Answers

In class, we discussed conditions for two triangles to be congruent. Now, lets look at
squares: what must be true for two squares to be congruent?

They have the same side length.

They have the same area/perimeter.
(Not correct!) They have the same angles.

Play the warm-up game without straws: in other words, after you are given the three side
lengths, try to directly cut out such a triangle. Is it easy to do so?

With only a ruler and a pencil, its hard to construct such a triangle. The easiest way to
do it also requires a protractor. First, draw a line segment with the same length as one of
the sides of the original triangle. Then, determine the angles of the other two sides
emerging from the ends of this line segment on the original triangle. Finally, replicate
those angles with the correct side lengths on the new line segment to make the new
triangle. This can be very inaccurate and tedious to do.
This shows that just because something is doable or true doesnt mean we can easily
do it or show it!

In SAS, we stressed that the angle has to be between the two sides. Is this necessary? As
in, if you know two sides of a triangle, a and b, and an angle A between sides b and c (the
unknown side), can you make two different triangles?

Yes! As shown in the figure below, you can have AB=PQ (side), BC=QR (side), and
angle A equal to angle P. Yet, these two triangles are obviously different! The reason that
this happens can be explained through noticing that once angle A and AB is fixed, there
are two points on the ray AC that are of a particular distance away from B.

Copyright Canadian Secondary School Mathematics Association. 2015-2016. All rights reserved.
 This shows that the placement of the angle matters in determining whether triangles
are congruent!

You learned about SSS and SAS today, both of which are methods of showing two
triangles as being congruent. It turns out there are more methods of doing so, but they all
require us knowing 3 facts about the triangles sides or angles. Why do you think this is
so?

To fully describe any particular triangle, we generally need to know its three side
lengths because it has three sides. If we were given less information, there would be no
way of determining the lengths of all three sides.
Hence, when determining whether another triangle is exactly the same (i.e. congruent)
to the given triangle, we need to know enough about the new triangle to fully describe it.
So we need to know three facts about it.

Suppose I have two triangles whose respective angles are equal. Do you know if they are
congruent? How do you know?

They are not necessarily congruent! As seen in the figure below, angle A is equal to
angle P, angle B is equal to angle Q, and angle C is equal to angle R, yet the two triangles
are clearly different in size. Equal respective angles can show that two triangles are
similar to each other, but since theres nothing known about side lengths involved, the
two triangles could have dramatically different sizes!

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 Food for Thought
Suggested Answers

What do you think are other ways of showing that two triangles are congruent to each
other?

ASA: two corresponding angles with the side between sandwiched between these two
angles all equal in both triangles.
AAS: two corresponding angles with any corresponding side between the two
triangles equal.
In a right-angled triangle, HS: hypotenuse and any other corresponding side between
the two triangles equal.

For two triangles to be congruent, they must share a side of equal length. Is the reverse
statement true: in other words, are two triangles that share one side of equal length
always congruent?

False! For example, draw a line on a piece of paper so that its two endpoints form two
of the vertices of the triangle. Now, choose a random point in the plane to be the third
vertex of the triangle. Clearly, there are many choices for this third point that would make
the resulting triangles very different!

We know that SSS shows two triangles to be congruent. If you have two triangles such
that at least one side length differ (so SSS is not satisfied), are those two triangles
necessarily not congruent?

This is a bit of a trick question, but the definition of congruent triangles implies that
SSS is satisfied in all cases that two triangles are congruent. Hence, if SSS is not
satisfied, the two triangles cannot be congruent. This should be pretty obvious from
intuition

Create two congruent triangles, A and B. Now make a triangle C with the same side
lengths as triangle B. Whats the relationship between A and C? Why?

By SSS, triangle C is congruent to triangle B. Since triangle B is congruent to triangle

A, it makes sense that congruency, as a measure of equality in geometry, is transitive.
Since in algebraic equality, A=B and B=C implies A=C, we would also expect triangle A
to be congruent to triangle C.

Copyright Canadian Secondary School Mathematics Association. 2015-2016. All rights reserved.
 Sammy tells you that he has two triangles with the following measurements:

Side a Side b Side c Angle A Angle B Angle C

Triangle 1 5 7 9 80 70 30

Triangle 2 5 7 10 85 65 30

If he uses SSS, from problem 3, the two triangles are not congruent; however, if he uses
SAS with sides a, b, and angle C (the angle opposite side C), he get that they are
congruent. Whats going on here?

Trick question! These two triangles actually dont exist!!! Try drawing them out and
youll see that if you have a triangle with side lengths 5, 7, and 9, the angles wont be 80,
70, and 30 degrees. Similarly, if you have a triangle with side lengths 5, 7, and 10, the
angles wont be 85, 65, and 30 degrees. Hence, SSS and SAS doesnt even apply as these
shapes are nonexistent!
Moral of the story: in this problem, we gave you too many conditions for the triangle
that ultimately turned out to be self contradictory. A triangle needs 3 key defining
conditions, usually its three side lengths. More information must coincide with these
three already given conditions.

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