Upper and Lower Sum

Upper & Lower Sum
This Dynamic Worksheet illustrates how lower and upper sums can be used to approximate the area between a function and the x-axis.

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1. Compare the values of the upper sum/lower sum to the value of the integral for different values of slider n. What do you notice?

2. What happens to the difference of the upper and lower sum (a) if n is small (b) if n is big?

Beth Schultheis, March 17, 2010, Created with GeoGebra