Kayla Hagel

11/20/14
MTH 462
Unit Plan
Lesson Plan #3
7-3 Part C&D: Finding Coordinate Distance and Making Connections
Teacher: Kayla Hagel
Topic: Distance Formula
Length of Lesson: 50-60 minutes
Goals and Objectives
Mathematical Goals:
o Students will use their previous knowledge about the Pythagorean Theorem and
how to find taxi distance to find straight-line distances on a coordinate plane.
(Even for segments that lie diagonally.)
o Students will then be able to use how they found distances on a coordinate plane
and apply it to real distances.
o Students will understand and properly use the following vocabulary term(s):
Distance Formula
Midpoint
Mathematical Objectives:
o Students will use the distance formula to find distance in the coordinate plane, and
to simplify square roots.
o Students will use distance to find midpoints of segments on a coordinate grid.
Previous Knowledge:
Students know the Pythagorean Theorem.
Students know how to use the taxi distance formula to find the distance between points
on a coordinate plane.
Students know the proper notation for points on a coordinate plane: (x, y).
Materials:
Graph paper one for each student
Pencil (or pen) one for each student
Notebooks or paper for note taking purposes
Textbook pages 511-515 and 519-520
Lesson Overview:
This lesson will follow the lessons on Taxi Distance and The Pythagorean Theorem. This
is a fairly short lesson and it will be modeled closely to that of the lesson on Taxi Distance (i.e. it
will follow the same format warm-up activity, lesson explanation/exploration, closing activity,
)
(
) ,
and homework.) Students will learn about the distance formula,
(
and they will learn how to apply the formula to points on a coordinate plane. Students will also
learn how the distance formula can be derived from the Pythagorean Theorem and the taxi

distance formula. Finally students will be asked to apply the Pythagorean Theorem, the taxi
distance formula, and the distance formula to real life situations, and they will have to reflect on
the relationships of the 3 formulas. This lesson will be followed by a homework assignment that
includes questions from both part C and D of section 7-3.