Biconditional Statements

Everyone knows that baby cats are kittens, but did you know that all kittens are not baby cats? “Kitten” is also used for baby rabbits, foxes, beavers, and even rats! The English language is flexible, and we often need to be much more specific. By structuring a statement as a biconditional, students can be more precise with language. The Biconditional Statements Gizmo encourages students to structure statements like “a cat is a kitten if and only if the cat is young,” which removes any ambiguity in the language.

The structure of language is closely related to the logical foundation of mathematics, and the Biconditional Statements Gizmo introduces symbolic logic to build the concepts needed for proofs in high school geometry, and later in real analysis and abstract algebra in college.