Picture This!
A Project for the Graphing Calculator
T^3 International Conference
Nashville, TN
March 7-9, 2003
Presenters:
Retha Gipson
Westside High School
1630 Hwy 91W
Jonesboro, AR 72404
rgipson@westside.crsc.k12.ar.us
Susan Creekmore
Marion High School
One Patriot Drive
Marion, AR 72364
screekmore@marion.crsc.k12.ar.us
Edited By: Heather Riddle
February 2005
Graphic Art: A Project for the Calculator
NCTM Standards:
Understand patterns, relations and functions
Understand relations and functions and select, convert flexibly among, and use various representations for them
Understand and perform transformations
Student Expectations
The student will:
Apply knowledge of functions to create calculator art
Improve current technology skills and learn new skills
Apply and reinforce knowledge of transformation of functions
Place restrictions on the graphs of functions
Show their creativeness
Materials
Graphing calculator
Sheet of sample graphs
Direction sheet with Helpful Hints
Access to a computer with a graph link
Overview
This activity is designed to give students an opportunity to apply their knowledge of functions and graphing to create their own original art.
Figure 4
Figure 6
Figure 5The students learn new calculator and computer techniques as they perfect their pictures and use the graph link to print their results. Requiring the students to identify what part of the picture each equation produces enforces the relationship between functions and their graphs. This fun project gives the students an opportunity to be creative in algebra.
Prerequisites
Students will need to know:
How to use the graphing feature of their calculator
Basic knowledge of functions and what their graphs look like
Limitations of their calculators
Teacher Notes
Plan to spend at least one class period introducing the project and explaining some of the advanced graphing techniques such as placing restrictions on functions
Work through an easy example with the students. Suggestion: if you do a heart in class require them to do something else for their picture...