Middle Grades Math: Real Graphs

Objectives

• Students will explore the plots of various data sets, looking for patterns.
• Students will identify plots that appear to be functions.
• Students will determine which plots appear to form a linear pattern, and then acquire the best function that models the pattern, in the form of y = mx + b.
• Students will parse the linear function, looking at the slope and the y-intercept in the context of the data that was used. They will identify the units of these values and their contextual meaning.
• Students will use functions to model relationships between quantities.

Vocabulary

• function
• model
• y-intercept
• slope
• table
• linear function
• variables
• independent variable
• dependent variable
• set

About the Lesson

This lesson involves identifying patterns of data from given lists.
As a result, students will:

• Identify patterns that might represent functions, and in particular, linear functions.
• Represent realistic relationships.
• Identify the best function to fit the data and examine its parts in context.