options: Modeling: students learn to choose and use appropriate mathematics and statistics to analyze real-world empirical situations, improve decisions, and report on their conclusions and the reasoning behind them.

Statistics & Probability: students learn to analyze and produce data distributions, and build understanding of univariate and bivariate data. They learn to interpret data, make statistical inferences, justify conclusions, understand rules of probability, and use probability to make decisions.

Number & Operations - Fractions: students learn to understand fractions as numbers and may work with them using addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

Number Systems and Quantity: students learn to understand the complex number system and reason quantitatively.

Measurement & Data: students learn to work with data and measure attributes such as time, money, length, area, and volume. They may learn to compare measurements to operations and convert between different units of measure.

Functions: students learn to define, use, and evaluate functions to model relationships between quantities.

Counting & Cardinality: students learn to know number names and the count sequence, count to tell the number of objects, and compare numbers.

Operations & Algebra: students learn to solve problems using algebraic thinking and operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. They may learn to identify and explain arithmetic patterns, evaluate or manipulate numerical expressions, and reason with equations and inequalities.

Number & Operations in Base Ten: students learn to work with the base-ten system and build place value understanding.

Ratios & Proportional Relationships: students learn to recognize, describe, represent, and reason with ratios, rates, proportional relationships, and percent.

Geometry: students learn to classify geometric figures by their properties, and understand and compare the relationships between them. Students develop and use formulas to compute lengths, areas, and volumes, and they use transformations to generate new shapes and compare existing ones. Geometry can be studied with and without coordinates.
problem_activity: Activity
The purpose of this activity is to strengthen connections between zeros of a function (input(s) when the output is 0), the output when the input is 0, and the coordinates of the intercept(s) of a graph of the function.
Launch
To ensure that students understand the task before beginning, display one of the functions for all to see, and test an input value that is
not
a zero of the function. For example, evaluate
\(a(\text-5)=\text-5 - 5\)
. Is the output 0? No, the output is -10. So -5 is not an input that would give an output of 0. Draw students’ attention to the list of possible inputs, and tell them that the task is to find the input or inputs for each function that gives an output of 0.
Student Facing
Here are the definitions of some functions, followed by some possible inputs for the functions.
\(a(x)=x - 5\)
\(b(x)=x + 5\)
\(c(x)=x-3\)
\(d(x)=x+1\)
\(f(x)=3x - 6\)
\(g(x)=3x + 6\)
\(h(x)=(x+5)(x+3)\)
\(m(x)=(x+1)(x-3)\)
\(n(x)=(3x-6)(x-5)\)
Possible inputs: -5, -4, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.
For each function, decide which input or inputs would give an output of 0.
Here are graphs of
\(b\)
,
\(f\)
, and
\(m\)
. Label each intercept with its coordinates, and be prepared to explain how you know.
[IMG]
Student Response
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Activity Synthesis
Display the correct responses to the first question and ask students to check their work. Invite a student to demonstrate how they know that
\(g(\text-2)=0\)
and
\(m(3)=0\)
(or choose a different function that any students struggled with). The important takeaway is not to look for shortcuts or patterns, but rather understand by evaluating the function why a given number is a zero of the function.
Invite students to share their responses and reasoning to the second question. If not mentioned, emphasize that:
The
\(y\)
-intercept of a graph corresponds to the output when the input is 0, so to find it, evaluate the function when
\(x\)
is 0. For example,
\(b(0)=5\)
, so the coordinates are
\((0,5)\)
of an intercept of the graph.
The
\(x\)
-intercepts correspond to the values found in the first question, the inputs that give an output of 0.
Any time you are dealing with an intercept, one of the coordinates must be 0. The coordinates of an
\(x\)
-intercept are
\((\text{something},0)\)
. The coordinates of a
\(y\)
-intercept are
\((0,\text{something})\)
.


correct_option_index: 5