The purpose of this Warm-up is to elicit the idea that graphs can be interpreted to have meaning in situations, which will be useful when students interpret similar graphs in a later activity. While students may notice and wonder many things about this graph, connections between the graph and the real situation are the important discussion points.

When students articulate what they notice and wonder, they have an opportunity to attend to precision in the language they use to describe what they see (MP6). They might first propose less formal or imprecise language, and then restate their observation with more precise language in order to communicate more clearly.

Ask students to share the things they noticed and wondered. Record and display their responses without editing or commentary. If possible, record the relevant reasoning on or near the graph. Next, ask students, “Is there anything on this list that you are wondering about now?” Encourage students to observe what is on display and to respectfully ask for clarification, point out contradicting information, or voice any disagreement.

If specific connections to height and time do not come up during the conversation, ask students to discuss these ideas.

In this partner activity, students take turns matching descriptions of situations to graphs of those situations. As students trade roles explaining their thinking and listening, they have opportunities to explain their reasoning and to critique the reasoning of others (MP3).

In this activity, students practice interpreting graphs of situations by describing the graphs in their own words. As students interpret the context of the graphs, they reason abstractly and quantitatively (MP2). The contexts are similar to the ones from the matching activity, so students can draw on that understanding to write their descriptions.