Graphing Linear Equations in Snap!

Snap! is a block based language created by the University of California at Berkeley and used in their first year computer science courses, as well as the high school AP Computer Science Principles Beauty and Joy of Computing curriculum. You might think of as Snap! as Scratch‘s older wiser cousin – perfect for learning computer science, engaging in more mathematical programming, and creating more complex coding projects.

For years, I have believed there to be an assortment of sophisticated programming projects that should be part of every child’s educational experience. Writing a program to graph a linear equation supports timeless algebraic curricula and is an excellent introduction to0 software design. Best of all, it is an opportunity to communicate the formalisms of algebra to the computer. By teaching this to the computer, students better understand the mathematics. When you learn that you can program your own tools, you are inspired to engage in even more sophisticated mathematical explorations.

I’ve done similar projects in Logo and MicroWorlds over the years.

This project is possible in Scratch (with barely any modifications), but the next project, generating an X Y table for a linear equation is not. Therefore, I decided to use Snap! in the context of the 7th grade class I taught today.

Here you may download and use the handout based on my classroom experience with kids. I attempted to commit the process to paper. I will likely create a handout for creating the X Y table too. In the meantime, can you figure out how to do it yourself?

[Note: I declare what Y equals rather than just inserting the equation into the y coordinate in order to make the y = …x clearer for kids]

Gary S. Stager, Ph.D. is an award-winning teacher educator, speaker, consultant and author who is an expert at helping educators prepare students for an uncertain future by super charging learner-centered traditions with modern materials and technology. He is considered one of the world’s leading authorities on learning-by-doing, robotics, computer programming and the maker movement in classrooms. Dr. Gary Stager is co-author of Invent To Learn — Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom and the founder of the Constructing Modern Knowledge summer institute. He led professional development in the world’s first 1:1 laptop schools and designed one of the first online graduate school programs. Learn more about Gary here.