Unit Warm-Up

Before beginning this section, let’s explore the equation of a circle and how it changes as the graph changes.

The following website is an interactive circle which allows you to move the center of the circle and make the circle bigger or smaller.  When you move the center, watch what happens to the equation.  When you make the circle bigger or smaller, watch what happens to the equation.  Explore what happens and write some notes about what you see.

Go to Math Warehouse's Interactive Circle site.

What happened to the equation as you moved the center of the circle?  Did you notice that the values subtracted from the x and y in the parentheses changed?

What happened to the equation as you made the circle bigger or smaller?  Did you notice that the value on the right side of the equation changed?

You will be studying the equation of a circle later in the unit.  When you begin to study that, look back at the notes you took when doing this exploration.