Precalculus: Graphs of the OTHER Trig Functions

Objectives

• Students will identify the values of cotangent, secant and cosecant for various values of θ from the unit circle.
• Students will understand the correspondence of the graphs of cotangent, secant and cosecant to the unit circle.
• Students will identify and explain features of the graphs of cotangent, secant, and cosecant, where the functions are undefined, or where they have intercepts.

Vocabulary

• sine
• cosine
• cotangent
• secant
• cosecant
• unit circle

About the Lesson

This lesson involves providing opportunities for students to explore and make sense of the graphs of the cotangent, secant, and cosecant functions.
As a result, students will:

• Use sliders to move a point around the unit circle, observing the changes in function values for cotangent, secant, and cosecant, and observing the connections to the graphs of each of the three functions.
• Make and test conjectures about the graphs of the cotangent, secant, and cosecant functions based on observations from the unit circle.