Lesson Title

The Cartesian Plane

Grade Level

Adaptable for grades 6-12

Designed by

Sierra Londenberg

Mathematical Practices

MP1 - Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.

MP3 - Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
MP6 - Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

Lesson Goals

The goal for this lesson is for students to learn the origins of the Cartesian Plane and how it represents a
relationship between numbers.

Learning Targets

● I can identify who created the Cartesian Plane.

● I can explain what the Cartesian Plane represents.

Resources

● Hawking, S. (2016). ​Descartes and the Cartesian Coordinate System.​ Retrieved from PBS Learning Media:
https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/hawking_genius_ep01_dimensions/descartes-and-cartesian-coo
rdinate-system/

● Mastin, L. (2020). ​Rene Descartes: Father of Modern Philosophy​. Retrieved from storyofmathematics.com:
https://www.storyofmathematics.com/17th_descartes.ht

● Nolan, R. A. (2017a). In ​Masters of Mathematics: The Problems They Solved, Why These are Important, and
What You Should Know About Them​ (pp. 363-377). Boston: Sense Publishers.

● University of Cambridge. (n.d.). ​Rene Descartes and the Fly on the Ceiling​. Retrieved from wild.maths.org:
https://wild.maths.org/ren%C3%A9-descartes-and-fly-ceiling

● Wilson, J. (n.d.). ​The Coordinate Plane​. Retrieved from The University of Georgia Department of Mathematics
Educations:
http://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/emt668/EMAT6680.2002/Curro/EMAT%206690/Instructional%20Unit/5.1.html

Materials Provided

● https://teacher.desmos.com/activitybuilder/custom/5efbfa4d6c7cdb1b95e41431
 ● The Cartesian Plane RAFT

Access for All

● EL​ - Allow students to work together if doing the Desmos activity in class. If students are working on
their own, give them ample time to work through the activity and be around to answer any questions
they might have. Allow students to watch the video on their own device so that they can use subtitles
of their preferred language.

● Special Needs ​- Allow students to work together if completing the Desmos activity in class. Be
available to answer any questions that students might have and to help them further understand any
topics that they might not be comfortable with throughout the lesson. When watching the video in the
activity have students use subtitles to help them follow along.

● Low Performance​ - Allow students to work in groups if completing the Desmos activity. Be available
to answer questions for students who are having a harder time with the material. Have students
watch the video with subtitles to make it easier to follow along. Encourage students to participate with
discussions on the topic to further their understanding.

● Advanced​ - Encourage students to research into Descartes more if they were interested in him.
Students could read some of his philosophy work and see what they think of it. This will probably be
quite a challenge for students, but there are some annotated versions they could read from.

Relevance

This lesson is relevant to students because the Cartesian Plane is the main plane that students will graph
on. It becomes especially useful in higher math courses like Calculus. Having students comprehend from
early on that the Cartesian Plane is used to visualize relationships will help students understand how and
why we graph on it.