In this lesson, students reason abstractly and quantitatively from the meaning of cube and cube root to solve equations of the form and , where can be positive or negative (MP2). Students use the graph of to find that all numbers have exactly one cube root.

Note that there are claims like, “All numbers have exactly one cube root,” which would be more precisely stated as “All real numbers have exactly one real cube root.” However, students don’t know about any numbers other than real numbers, so it does not make sense to make this distinction at this time.

One activity is optional because it is extra practice with solving cube root equations that not all classes may need. 

Some of the activities in this lesson work best when each student has access to a device that can run the applet because it allows them to find solutions with better precision (MP6).