Day 23: Find Distance on the Coordinate Plane

Today in Math 6 and Math 6+ students began the class period by completing a vocabulary quiz dealing with terms from Topic Two. Mr. Giomini has had the terms available for students to learn and review since before the topic was begun. The terms are also used a great deal during classroom instruction.

Using a coordinate plane and plotted points, Mr. Giomini modeled how to calculate the distance between two points using absolute value and either the x- or y-axis. By looking at two different points on the coordinate plane, one analyzes both the x and y-intercepts. If the y-intercepts are the same, one must must the absolute value of the x-intercept to find the distance using absolute value.

In this lesson, students will be able to...

• use absolute value to find the distance between two points that lie on the same horizontal or vertical line on a coordinate plane.
• solve real-world and mathematical problems involving distances on the coordinate plane.

Essential Understanding:

• The distance between two points on the coordinate plane with the same first coordinate or the same second coordinate can be found by adding or subtracting the absolute values of the coordinate that differ.