Rachel Crowe

Introducing Diophantine Equations using

Concrete Examples and Discovery Learning
Diophantine Equations in High School?
I didnt learn the term Diophantine equation or learn the explicit rule about when
they had integer solutions until I got to college. After seeing the rule and a
general proof I thought, High school students might not be able to follow this
proof, but I am sure they could grasp the concept if it was presented in a
concrete way. An activity dealing with Diophantine equations would also give
students more insight into linear equations and show them that greatest common
divisor is not just for factoring. The activity also gives students a chance to come
up with their own conjectures, test their conjectures, and discover a method to
solve a non-routine problem. I wanted to create an activity with a topic that one
doesnt typically see in a high school classroom. The goals for this lesson are for
students to 1) Make and test a conjecture about when a Diophantine equation
has integer solutions 2) be able to find one possible integer solution 3) make and
test a conjecture about how to find all other possible solutions from one base
solution.
The activity is geared towards high school students who at the very least know
how to graph and analyze linear functions. It is also assumed that students know
how to input a linear function into their graphing calculator. The activity can be
altered to fit different levels of students. If students are at a lower level, the
instructor can give them more hints. If students are advanced, the instructor can
expect more detail from their answers and explanations.

The Activity
This activity starts off with a worksheet that students work through together in
groups. It ends with a full class discussion. A copy of the group worksheet is
attached.
Instead of just throwing a Diophantine equation at students and asking them to
guess and check whether the equation had integer solutions, the students are
presented with a concrete example that could later by represented by a
Diophantine equation.
You have 33 packages of candy that you want to give away as gifts. You plan to
give someone either a group of 6 candies or a group of 3 candies. How many of
each grouping should you make? Tell the students their goals are to: 1) use all
33 packages if possible and 2) Try to find all possible combinations.

Provide students with a hands-on tool that will help them come up with possible
combinations. To do this, get some wrapped candy. Group candy together in the
amounts needed for the problem (in this case 3 and 6) and tape candy together
in a vertical line. For example, tape Starbursts candy in vertical groups of 3 and
6. (See picture below) Then cut a strip of paper and mark vertical boxes on the
paper. The key is to make the boxes the same size as whatever candy you are
using. For this example the strip of paper would have to be 33 boxes long. The
students would them place the groups of candy on the strip to see what
combinations they can find that would cover the whole strip. See picture below
to see a blank strip and how some possible combinations of candy would look
when put on the strip.
Starbursts taped together in groups of 6 and 3

Some Possible Combinations that total to 33

To cut down on the amount of supplies needed, it might be helpful to have the
students working in groups. Students might have trouble getting started without
seeing an example first, so go around to each group and if they are having
trouble, put down the candy to show them one possible combination. Once they
see the idea of the activity, they should be able to catch on.
To asses this part of the activity, simply walk around the classroom and observe
what the students are doing. Ask them questions like How do you know you got
all the possible combinations Try to get students to give good verbal
explanations like We know it isnt possible to use two groups of 3 because then
there would be 27 squares left and 6 isnt a multiple of 27. If students are
having trouble verbalizing this, give them a hint like Why cant you have a
combination that uses two sets of 3?

Reporting and Analyzing Results

Student would be instructed to list their possible combinations as ordered pairs
(x,y) where x respresents the number of gifts with 6 candies and y represents the
number of gifts with 3 candies. For example, the three possible combinations
pictured would be reported as (1,9), (4,3) and (5,1) respectively.

Students would then repeat the activity using a different number of total candies.
It is important to have an example where it is impossible to give away all the
candies so students can begin to see a pattern of when the problem has integer
solutions. So, in this example 32 might be a total number to use. Students can
use the same groups of candy, they would just have to fold the strip of paper so
only 32 boxes are showing.
Student could report their findings in a chart like the one shown below.

Candy
Grouping

Number
of
Packages

6, or 3

33

6, or 3

32

6, or 3

36

Is it possible to
give away all of
the candy?
(yes or no)

If possible, list
all the different
combinations in
ordered pairs.

Before trying to analyze the results, bring the class together to ensure they all
have the correct results. This way, students are not trying to analyze false
results. This can be done by having one group call out their answers and the
rest of the class either agreeing or disagreeing. When two groups disagree it is
best to try to have the two groups try to figure out why they got different answers
as apposed to the teacher just stated which group is correct.
After it has been confirmed that each group has the correct information, students
would be asked to make a conjecture about when its possible to give away all
the candy. This is an analogous way of asking When does a Diophantine
equation have integer solutions? Remind students you are looking for
something more than When the candy can evenly fill up the entire strip If
students need help getting started, you might want to point out to look at the
relationship between the numbers 6, 3, and the total number of packages.
Hopefully students will recognize when the candy total was 33 and 36, all of the
candy packages could be given away. So, they might notice that 3 is a multiple
of 33 and 3 and 6 are both multiples of 36. This might lead to a student
conclusion that all the candy can be given away if one of the grouping numbers
in a multiple of the total number.

Testing the Conjecture

Now students can be given several more candy combinations and asked to
decide if all the candy can be given away by only using their conjecture. After
answers are found just by using their rule, students could use the hands on

activity of candy and a strip of paper to see if their answers were right. The table
below displays some possible groupings and number of candy packages that
could be used.

Candy
Grouping

Number Is it possible to If possible, list

of
give away all of all the different
Packages
the candy?
combinations.
(yes or no)

4, or 6

34

4, or 6

21

2, or 3

25

The goal of this activity is for students to either confirm or reject their conjecture.
This goes along with the Mathematical Processes Benchmark for grades 11-12;
Construct logical verification or counter-examples to test conjectures from the
Ohio academic content standards.
If a student first stated that one of the grouping number must be a multiple of the
total number, they would hopefully realize this was incorrect because 34 candy
packages could be given away if the candy was grouped in 4s and 6s , but
neither 4 nor 6 is a multiple of 34.
Students might need a little hint like Well look at the factors of 4 and 6.
Hopefully some students would realize that the candy can all be given away if the
greatest common divisor of the two grouping numbers is also a factor of the total
number of packages. Its a bit much to expect every student to see this pattern
on his/her own, but it is fair to expect them to understand the pattern.

Turning the Concrete Examples into an Abstract Problem

Now that the students have worked with the concrete situation, they can try to
represent the situation with a linear equation. This would start the full class
discussion. Ask the students to write a linear equation where x is the number of
gifts with 4 candies, y is the number of gifts with 6 candies and you have a total
of 34 candies to give away. Hopefully students will be able to come up with the
equation 4x+3y=34. Then point out to the students that the question of Is it
possible to give away all the candy? is analogous to asking When does this
equation have integer solutions? The combinations the students should have
found for this grouping during the hands on activity are (1,5), (4,3), and (7,1).
Students could check that the ordered pairs they found truly do work for this
equation by plugging the numbers into the equation and checking algebraically.

To see that the possible combinations match the equation visually, students could
graph 4x+3y=34 and see that the three ordered pairs all fall on the line. Also,
when looking at the points on the graph, students might notice that the points are
evenly spread out. This will come up later when trying to find all possible
solutions.

Finding Negative Solutions and Looking for Patterns

Obviously when dealing with the concrete example of candy, negative integer
solutions dont make much sense. But now that students are working with a
linear function, they can start to explore the negative solutions. This is easy to
see by having the students graph the linear function on a
graphing calculator then looking at the table.
Looking at the table (shown on left) makes if very clear
where the integer solutions lie. The students see their
original (1,5), (4,3) and, (7,1) but they can also see the
endless other possible negative integer solutions.
This would also be a good point to ask students if they see
any pattern being formed by the integer solutions. Looking
at the chart should make it clear that with each new integer
solution, x is changing by 3. Student should also notice that
with each new integer solution the value of y is changing by
2. Lastly students should notice that as x is increasing y is
decreasing. That can also be notices by realizing the line
has a negative slope.

Finding All Integer Solutions, Making a Conjecture

Next, inform students that our goal is to come up with a rule or pattern that will
allow us to find all integer solutions after knowing just one. Start by picking one
solution. For example, pick (1, 5) as the base solution. Since we have noticed
that x goes up by steps of three, the x values of all integer solutions could be
represented by x=1+3t where t is any integer. Since we have seen that the y
values go down by steps of 2, we could represent the y values of all the integer
solutions by the equation y=5-2t, were t is any integer.
If students are having trouble grasping these equations; have them do a couple
of examples. Ask them what happens when t is 1? After plugging in 1 for t,
they should get the ordered pair (4, 3), which they can see was one of the
solutions. Doing the same for a couple more t values should get them
comfortable with the formula.
In these formulas, it is clear that 1 and 5 came from the known solution of (1,5).
But, we got that x and y were changing by steps of 3 and 2 by studying the chart
of possible integer solutions. Inform the students that the goal is now to figure
out how we could have came up with the steps of 3 and 2 from just seeing the
original equation. Remind them that we are using the equation 4x+6y=34. So the
numbers we are working with are 4, 6, 34, and gcd(4,6)=2. Have students make
a conjecture about where 3 and 2 could have come from when working with the
numbers 4, 6, 34, and 2. If a student is having trouble give them a hint that not
all four numbers would have to be used, those are just all the numbers we are
working with. For example, a student might think that x is changing by steps of
three because it is half of the y coefficient 6. It would follow that y changes by
steps of 2 since 2 is half of the x coefficient 4.

Testing the Conjecture

Now that students have a conjecture, have them test it on a different problem.
Give the students a problem like 6x+3y=33. Have them find one integer solution
and then use their conjecture to come up with a formula for x and y. But, if a
student had a conjecture like the one stated before, they would run into a
problem because having the x values move up by steps of 1.5 (half of the y
coefficient 3) wouldnt make any sense since we are looking for integer solutions.
Going back, hopefully a student would catch that in the first problem, the
coefficients were being divided by 2 since the gcd(4,6)=2.

Finalizing the Formula

Next, ask students to write a general formula for how to find all possible integer
solution from just the equation and one possible solution. Your expectation on
how this should be presented depends on the level of your student. Advanced
students should be able to state:

Given that the equation ax+by=c has an integer solution (x 1,y1), all the integer

b
a
t and y y1
t
gcd(a, b)
gcd(a, b)

solutions can be found by, x x1

A less advanced student might represent the answer like this:

All the integer solutions can be found by the formulas:
X=one possible x solution + (y coefficient / gcd) t
Y=one possible y solution +(x coefficient/ gcd)t
When analyzing their responses ask yourself Was my goal to get them to
understand the idea, or be able to express something using proper mathematical
notation? After answering this question, you will be able to decide for yourself
what kind of responses you will accept from students.

Extensions
This activity can connect with other various math topics. For advanced students,
this could lead into using the Euclidean algorithm to find the greatest common
divisor of two numbers. Once students are comfortable with the Euclidean
Algorithm, they could learn how to work backwards through it to find one possible
integer solutions.
In this lesson students saw that solutions could be found when given one
equation with two variables. This could lead into future lessons where students
were given more equations with more variables.

Assessment
The assessment of most of this lesson is based off of teacher observations
during the activity. Since a goal was for students to make and test conjectures,
the teacher needs to observe this actually going on. Another way to asses
student learning would be to give students a Diophantine equation and ask them
the following questions:
1. Does this equation have integer solutions? How do you know?
2. What is one possible solution?
3. Write a formula that would give all possible integer solutions.

Instructor Reflection
For this activity, I believe, the assessment of informal observation and
questioning is very important. It is important that students be able to use and
apply the rule that was discovered (as tested in the written assignment stated
above), but the uniqueness of this activity was the fact that the students had to
work to come up with and test the rules themselves. After the lesson was over I
would ask myself Did the students gain problem solving skills and understand
the material, or did they just memorize steps to method? Then, I would alter the
activity depending on how I answered that question.
COPY OF CLASS ACTIVITY HANDOUT

Problem one:
You have 33 packages of candy that you want to give away as Christmas presents. You
plan to give someone either a group of 6 candies or a group of 3 candies. How many of
each grouping should you make?
a. Your goal is to use up all 33 packages, is that possible?
b. If so, what are all the possible combinations if you use all 33
packages?
Note: List your combinations as an ordered pair (x,y). Where x is the number of gifts
with 6 candies and y is the number of gifts with 3 candies.
Problem two:
If you have 32 packages of candy that you want to give away, is it possible to give all 32
away in groups of 6 and 3?
If so, what are all the possibilities?
Problem three:
If you have 36 packages of candy you want to give away, is it possible to give all 36
away in groups of 6 and 3?
If so, what are all the possibilities?
Results

Candy
Grouping

Number of
Packages

6, or 3

33

6, or 3

32

6, or 3

36

Is it possible to give
away all of the
candy?
(yes or no)

If possible, list all

the different
combinations.

Make a guess about a rule that lets you know whether of not its possible to give away
all the candy.

Now use your rule to make a guess about the following questions:
1. If you had 34 candy packages and decided to give away the candy in groups of 4 and 6
is it possible to give away all the candy?
2. If you had 21 candy packages and decided to give away the candy in groups of 4 and 6,
is it possible to give away all the candy?
3. If you had 25 candy packages and decided to give away the candy in groups of 2 and 3
is it possible to give away all the candy?
Now that you have your guess, check to see if you are correct using the blocks. If it is
possible, list the combinations as the ordered pair (x,y).
Results

Candy
Grouping

Number of
Packages

4, or 6

34

4, or 6

21

2, or 3

25

Is it possible to give
away all of the
candy?
(yes or no)

If possible, list all

the different
combinations.

Now that you have seen some more results, do you want to change your rule of how to
tell if all the candy can be given away? (Ask teacher for hint if you need it)