Distance Time Graphs

Grade 9s are working on various relationships, and today we looked at slopes on a distance time graph and how that relates to speed. There’s a fantastic game which I enjoy watching students play on the big screen each year.

They click and drag on a stick figure and see what distance/time graph gets made. The goal is to match the given graph.

I asked students to be brave volunteers to either do a good job, or a really bad job at matching the graph. Sometimes allowing it to be done badly and have it be no big deal will encourage more people to come try. There are 12 different scenarios, and they can be replayed if students want to do some head to head competition.

Before each attempt the class puts into words what the stick figure should do. They make a plan and end up saying things like, “one space per second” or “2 spaces per second” or “in 3 seconds it needs to end up at 3 spaces”. Some connected the positive and negative and zero slopes to the direction of movement. It’s a fun way to explore a concept before doing some more individual practice.