Describe the location of the fly that will appear on the screen.

Describe the location of this fly.

Now describe the location of this fly.

Which fly location was the easiest to describe? WHY? Did you know that this idea of locating an object using a grid (coordinate plane) was developed by a mathematician named Rene Descartes? He was in bed one morning watching a fly walk across his ceiling. He wanted to describe the exact location of the fly and he wanted to Describe the path the fly walked. This led to the idea of the coordinate plane!

That Descartes guy sounds pretty interesting! Yeah, most mathematicians are pretty interesting! Math is AWESOME!!

The coordinate plane is divided into four quadrants by the x-axis and the y-axis. x-axis y-axis

The point where the x-axis and the y-axis intersect is called the origin. x-axis y-axis origin

We label numbers on the x and y axis the same way we label numbers on a number line. We start at the zero. x-axis y-axis

The quadrants are numbered using Roman Numerals. x-axis y-axis

Each quadrant has specific types of points that go in it. x-axis y-axis ( positive, positive)( negative, positive) ( negative, negative) ( positive, negative)

Points are located by describing their distance from the origin. First the distance right or left of the origin is given, then the distance above or below. x-axis y-axis The location of a point is described using two numbers, an x-coordinate and a y-coordinate. What do you think the x-coordinate describes, the distance right or left of the origin or the distance up or down from the origin? What do you think the y-coordinate describes, the distance right or left of the origin or the distance up or down from the origin?

The x-coordinate and y-coordinate used to name the location of a point are written as an ordered pair - (x, y). y-axis This point is located 2 units to the right of the origin and 3 units up from the origin. So, the ordered pair that describes its location is (2, 3). x-axis ORIGIN

State the ordered pair that describes the location of each point. x-axis y-axis

Draw an x-axis and a y-axis on a piece of graph paper. Label both. Label each quadrant on the coordinate plane. Graph the following points. Write the ordered pair next to the point. (13, 8) (9, 2)(0, -14)(2, 0) (-9, -7) (17, -11)(-5, -3)(-7, 2)