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Activity (Hands-On)Grades 7 - 9

Club Function

A Cartesian coordinate plane showing four plotted points (0,0), (2,3), (-3,1) and (-1.5,-2.5).Students explore functions and the coordinate plane

Students explore the definition of a function by playing an interactive game called "Club Function." The goal of the game is to be in the club! With students each assigned to be either a zebra or a rhinoceros, they group themselves according to the "rules" of the club function. After two minutes, students freeze in their groups, and if they are not correctly following the rules of the club function, then they are not allowed into the "club." Through this activity students come to understand that one x-coordinate can only have one corresponding y-coordinate while y-coordinates can have many x-coordinates that correspond to it.

Engineers must understand functions in order to represent real-world phenomena using mathematics. Much of engineering employs mathematics in modeling and predicting relationships between variables, and the function is one of the most important concepts in mathematics. This activity focuses on linear equations, which are the basis for many simple, yet important concepts within engineering.

After this lesson students should be able to:

  • State the definition of a function.
  • Identify non-functions and explain their flaws by talking about x and y coordinates.
  • Create their own mapping diagram from a set of names from the activity or coordinates from the coordinate plane.

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