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Module - Linear Equations
Introduction - Skiing Anyone?

Lessons

1-

Slope

2-

Point-Slope and Standard Form

3-

X- and Y-intercepts

4-

Slope-Intercept Form

5-

Graphing Linear Equations

6-

Graphing Linear Inequalities

7-

Module Review

 

 


When you hear the word slope, what do you think about? A lot of people get pictures of skiers going down ski slopes. When we talk about the slope of a mountain, we are referring to the steepness of that mountain. In math, slope is used to describe a line drawn in the coordinate plane.

Pretend that you are a 1st-time skier facing your first run down the "bunny slope" (beginners hill). You do not want this hill to be too steep so you can learn to ski. That is, you hope that the hill rises very little vertically compared to the horizontal distance, or run, from the top to the bottom of the hill. After practice, you can move to the intermediate and then the expert slopes where the rise is much greater than the run. In other words, the hill has a steeper slope.

Looking at the graph below, which would be the expert slope?

Hopefully, you picked line #1. It has a much steeper slope than the others.

Upon completion of the activities in this unit, you should be able to:

  • Use the following terms in a written paragraph to describe the key concepts of this module.
    • slope-intercept form
    • slope
    • x-intercept
    • y-intercept
  • Find the slope of a line, given two points.
  • Determine the slope and y-intercept of a graph.
  • Determine the slope given an equation.
  • Graph linear equations using the x- and y-intercepts, the slope and y-intercept, or a t-table.
HCPS 2002-2011