Exploring Change: Position

Here goes some introductory text.

Investigate

The first new thing here is the time axis. A point Time was created and it's x-coordinate represents the current time of day. The also new point P represents time versus position. It's x-coordinate is the time, and the y-coordinate is your position.

For this first trial, you won't move point Me at all. Questions:

  1. What kind of position trace do you think you'll get if point Me just sits there and point Time moves? (Think! How is your distance from home changing if you stay in your bed as the minutes tick by?)

Check your answer by pressing the Animate button and observe.

After examining your trace (was it what you expected?) press the Reset button.

Now drag point Me while point Time moves. Point P will plot your position with respect to time. You can drag point Me any way you wish, but try each of these suggested movements as well. Each time, draw a little sketch of your trace in the margin and make a note of what you did to get that trace. Remember to press Reset when you want to try a new motion.

Make a variety of traces, and look for relationships between how you move the point and the resulting trace. Questions:

  1. How must you drag point Me to make the directed distance (position) measurement increase? What happens on the trace when you do this? (Remember that going from -2 to -1 is an increase.)
  2. How must you drag point Me to make the directed distance (position) measurement decrease? What happens on the trace when you do this?

Closing words...