Education Technology


Transformations: Dilating Functions

Activity Overview

Dilate and reflect different types of function graphs by grabbing points.

Objectives

  • Students will explore how positive and negative leading coefficients in a function can dilate or reflect the graph of the function.
  • Students will graph and analyze absolute value functions.
  • Students will analyze the structure of a function and its graph to determine the value of a coefficient in the function.

Vocabulary

  • vertical dilation
  • reflection
  • vertical stretch
  • vertical shrink

About the Lesson

This lesson involves dilating and reflecting different types of function graphs by grabbing points. As a result, students will understand:

  • How multiplying a function by a leading coefficient vertically stretches or shrinks a graph.
  • How multiplying by a negative leading coefficient reflects the graph through the x-axis.