Lesson 21
Drawing on the Coordinate Plane
Lesson Narrative
In this optional culminating lesson, students use graphing technology to plot ordered pairs and create images. Using graphing technology for this lesson is highly recommended over doing it with pencil and paper. In the first activity, students recreate a given image to help familiarize them with how the graphing technology works. The second activity, where students design their own image, could be lengthened or shortened as needed by instructing students to create an image with more or less detail. Using graphing technology gives students an opportunity to attend to precision (MP6) because the program graphs exactly what they enter and will not guess at what they might have meant if they input a point incorrectly.
Learning Goals
Teacher Facing
- Generate a list of ordered pairs to create an image in the coordinate plane, and explain (orally) the reasoning.
Student Facing
- Let’s draw on the coordinate plane.
Required Materials
Required Preparation
Acquire devices that can run Desmos (recommended) or other graphing technology. It is ideal if each student has their own device. It is highly recommended to use graphing technology for this lesson. If graphing technology is not available, using graph paper is a possibility or consider skipping this lesson.
Learning Targets
Student Facing
- I can use ordered pairs to draw a picture.