Cartesian Coordinate System

Abstract

This lesson is designed to familiarize students to the Cartesian Coordinate System and its many uses in the world of mathematics.

Objectives

Upon completion of this lesson, students will:

• have been introduced to the Cartesian coordinate plane
• be able to plot points on the plane
• be able to read coordinates for a point from a graph
• be able to give the ratio of rise over run for slope

Activities

This lesson introduces students to plotting points using the Cartesian coordinate system through the following activities:

• General Coordinates Game
• Maze Game
• Graphit
• Simple Plot
• Graph Sketcher

Standards

The activities and discussions in this lesson address the following Standards:

• Number sense, number operations and number relationships
• Patterns, relationships and functions

Key Terms

This lesson introduces students to the following terms through the included discussions:

• coodinates
• coordinate plane
• function
• graph
• negative numbers
• quadrant

Student Prerequisites

• Arithmetic: Students must be able to:
  • perform integer and fractional arithmetic
• Algebraic: Students must be able to:
  • work with very simple linear algebraic expressions
• Technological Students must be able to:
  • perform basic mouse manipulations such as point, click and drag
  • use a browser such as Netscape for experimenting with the activities

Teacher Preparation

Students will need:

• access to a browser
• pencil
• copies of supplemental materials for the activities:
  • Coordinates Game Suggestions
  • Maze Game Suggestions

Lesson Outline

This lesson is best if the students work in small groups of two or three.

1. Begin this lesson with a discussion of the coordinate plane.

2. Have students practice their skills with the General Coordinates Game.

3. For further practice or an alternative game, have the students play the Maze Game.

4. To show students that the coordinate plane is useful in more than just describing the location of objects lead a discussion on reading points off a graph. This will show the students that they can read graphs and find the equations of lines using their knowledge of the coordinate plane.

5. Have the student graph functions and points using the Graphit activity. Or split up the graphing by using the Simple Plot to graph points and the Graph Sketcher activity to graph functions.

Alternate Outlines

This lesson can be rearranged in several ways.

• Omit one or the other of the computer activities to reduce the amount of time spent.
• Add a discussion about fractional movement on the coordinate plane.
• For students who aren't ready to handle negative numbers yet, replace the Coordinates activity with the positive numbers only alternate versions:
  • Simple Coordinates Game
    Coordinates Worksheet
  • Simple Maze Game
    Maze Game Worksheet

Extensions

After these discussions and activities, students will be have learned to plot points on the coordinate plane and to read the coordinates off of a graph. The next lesson Functions and Graphs will introduce students to the graphical representation of functions.