Education Technology


Exploring Transformations

Activity Overview

Investigate translating and reflecting shapes in the coordinate plane and observe how the new image is related to the original shape.

Objectives

  • Students will identify the coordinates of a shape that has been translated.
  • Students will identify the coordinates of a shape that has been reflected.
  • Students will determine the original coordinates of a translated figure given its current coordinates and the directed distance of translation.

Vocabulary

  • pre-image
  • image
  • transformation
  • translation
  • reflection

About the Lesson

This lesson involves translating and reflecting shapes in the coordinate plane. As a result, students will:

  • Translate a shape horizontally and vertically by grabbing and moving points along a line.
  • Determine the coordinates of the image given the amount of translation.
  • Reflect a shape over the x-axis and the y-axis by moving points along a line.
  • Determine the coordinates of the image given the direction of reflection.
  • Determine the difference between a reflection and a translation.