1

Steep Thinking
Inspired by Building Foundations, by Hollowell, Daley, and Wenger
Speed is often measured in units of distance per units of time. The units for speed are based on
the units for distance and time.
For example, if distance is in feet
and time in seconds, the speed is
in feet per second (ft/sec). If the
distance is in miles and the time
in hours, the speed is in miles per
hour (mph).
For example, highway speed limits are often between 50 and 70
miles per hour. The average speed for a period of time is
found by dividing:
average speed =
total distance traveled
total time
1. Find the average speed for the following situations.
(a) In the 2000 summer Olympic Games, Australian Cathy
Freeman ran the womens 400-meter race in 49.11 sec-
onds, winning the race.
(b) For a high school track meet, Miguel ran the 100 yard
dash in exactly 11 seconds.
(c) How many feet are in 100 yards? Find Miguels average
speed in feet per second.
For vacation, Carly and her parents visit Carlys grandparents,
who live 200 miles away. The following graph gives information
about one of their trips. The graph shows how far they had
driven over time.
Time (hours)
D
i
s
t
a
n
c
e

(
m
i
l
e
s
)
0 1 2 3 4
0
40
80
120
160
200
Problems with a Point: June 5, 2001 c EDC 2001
Steep Thinking: Problem 2
2. Use the graph of Carlys trip to complete this table.
Time Interval Distance Time Elapsed Average Speed
(hours) (miles) (hours) (mph)
01
11.5
1.52
23.5
3.54.5
3. Rank the time intervals from least steep to steepest. What
happens to the average speed as the graph gets steeper?
4. What was Carlys average speed from 0 hours to 2 hours?
From 2 hours to 4 hours?
5. What was Carlys average speed from 2 hours to 2.5 hours?
From 2.5 hours to 3 hours? How can you answer these
questions without doing additional calculations?
6. Why couldnt you answer problem 4 without doing ad-
ditional calculations? What about Carlys speed in the
intervals in problem 5 is dierent from her speed in the
intervals given in problem 4?
7. Consider the endpoints of each part of the graph described
by the time intervals in the table. (That is, look at where
the graph is when the time is 0, 1, 1.5, 2, 3.5, and 4 hrs.)
(a) Label each endpoint with its (time, distance) coordi-
nates.
(b) From the coordinates of the endpoints, how can you
nd the distance traveled over a time interval? How
can you nd how much time has elapsed?
(c) If the endpoints of a time interval are (a, b) and (x, y),
with x > a, how can you nd the average speed for
that time interval?
8. Suppose you know that the car was moving at a constant
speed the whole time from a hours to c hours. Suppose
you also know that the distance at time a was b miles, and
that the distance at time x was y miles (a < x < c).
(a) What would the graph look like on the interval from a
to c hours?
(b) Find the speed from time a to time c.
(c) Find the distance at time c.
9. A measure of the steepness of a line is the slope of the
Problems with a Point: June 5, 2001 c EDC 2001
Steep Thinking: Problem 3
line. The graph on page 1 is actually created from several
line segments, each having a dierent slope. The slope for
each is the number value of the speed on the interval. For
example, the speed for the segment from 0 to 1 is 30 mph.
The slope for that line segment is 30.
(a) Use your answers to previous problems to write a for-
mula for the slope of a line that goes through points
(x
1
, y
1
) and (x
2
, y
2
).
(b) What is the slope of a horizontal line?
Problems with a Point: June 5, 2001 c EDC 2001
Steep Thinking: Answers 1
Answers
1. (a) about 8.14 m/sec
(b) about 9.09 yd/sec
(c) There are 300 feet in 100 yards; Miguels average speed
was about 27.27 ft/sec.
2.
Time Int. (hrs) Distance (mi) Time Elapsed (hrs) Ave. Speed (mph)
01 40 1 40
11.5 30 0.5 60
1.52 0 0.5 0
23.5 90 1.5 60
3.54.5 40 1 40
3. Least steep is 1.52 hrs; next steepest are 01 and 3.54.5
hrs; steepest are 11.5 and 23.5. As the line gets steeper,
the average speed goes up.
4. From 0 to 2 hours, the average speed was 35 mph. From
2 to 4 hours, the average speed was 55 mph.
5. 60 mph in both cases; the average speed of 60 mph didnt
change from 2 to 3.5 hours, so the speeds for intervals
within that interval are also 60 mph.
6. For the intervals in problem 4, the cars speed changed
there were two or more segments with dierent steepness.
The speed didnt change in the intervals in problem 5.
7. (a)
Time (hours)
D
i
s
t
a
n
c
e

(
m
i
l
e
s
)
1 2 3 4
40
80
120
160
200
(0, 0)
(1, 40)
(1.5, 70)
(2, 70)
(3.5, 160)
(4, 200)
(b) For distance, subtract the second coordinates; for time
Problems with a Point: June 5, 2001 c EDC 2001
Steep Thinking: Answers 2
elapsed, subtract the rst coordinates.
(c) Divide
yb
xa
.
8. (a) The graph would be a single line segmentno bends
or corners.
(b) Speed is
yb
xa
.
(c) At time c, the distance is b + c(
yb
xa
).
9. (a) Slope is
y
2
y
1
x
2
x
1
or, equivalently,
y
1
y
2
x
1
xx
.
(b) 0
Problems with a Point: June 5, 2001 c EDC 2001