This is a teacher guide for an activity in which students will apply coding skills to engage with plotting points in all four quadrants on the Cartesian Plane.
By: Lisa Anne Floyd and Steven Floyd
In this activity, students are provided with a link to a Scratch program that plots points (in the form of diamonds) on a Cartesian Plane. After “playing” with the code to determine what is happening, students will attempt seven challenges, which will require them to alter parts of the code to change the outcome. This activity is appropriate for both onsite and online learning.
The student activity, with instructions and hints can be found here. You might choose to share this link directly with students.
We’ve also created a page with possible solutions in the form of screen prints and video explanations that can be found here. You might wish to share this with students if they are stuck, would like to check their work, or as the teacher, you may just refer to this page as you support students with troubleshooting.
According to the Ontario Ministry of Education Curriculum and Resources (2020) website Grades 1-8 Mathematics Curriculum Glossary, a defined count is:
“the number of times instructions are repeated based on a predefined value or until a condition has been met”.
Grade 7 Curriculum Expectations Addressed in this exercise:
Spatial Sense – Location and Movement:
E1.4 describe and perform translations, reflections, and rotations on a Cartesian plane, and predict the results of these transformations
Algebra – Patterns
C1.1 identify and compare a variety of repeating, growing, and shrinking patterns, including patterns found in real-life contexts, and compare linear growing patterns on the basis of their constant rates and initial values
Algebra – Coding Skills
C3.2 read and alter existing code, including code that involves events influenced by a defined count and/or sub-program and other control structures, and describe how changes to the code affect the outcomes and the efficiency of the code
*Thank you to Gabriela Bowen of HWCDSB for feedback on this Activity*