Flight Plan (5.G.2)

Summary

Students will apply their understanding of points on a coordinate plane to a task involving air traffic control.

Materials

• Graph paper
• Colored pencils
• Task sheet

Background for Teachers

Teachers need to understand how to plot points in Quadrant One of the coordinate plane and the meaning of a flight plan.

Student Prior Knowledge

Students need a working knowledge of:

• Points
• X-axis
• Y-axis
• Coordinate plane
• Meaning of the term "flight plan"

Intended Learning Outcomes

Students will apply and extend previous understandings of locating and naming points in the first quadrant of a coordinate plane to a real world situation.

Instructional Procedures

Strategies for Diverse Learners

Supports for struggling learners could include:

• larger squares on their graph paper
• the teacher establishes the starting point
• explicitly showing them the location of the hub and the airport
• modeling what it means to be at an intersecting coordinate

Extensions

• Determining the time each flight will take based on mph
• Comparing distances traveled
• Why might a flight not be able to travel in a straight path?

Bibliography

Adapted from: Smith, Margaret Schwan, Victoria Bill, and Elizabeth K. Hughes. "Thinking Through a Lesson Protocol: Successfully Implementing High-Level Tasks." Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School 14 (October 2008): 132-138.