Algebra Rules!: Algebra

Did you know that algebra is a kind of language to help us talk about ideas and relationships in mathematics? Rather than saying “the girl with blonde hair who is in the eighth grade and is 5'4" tall and…,” we use her name, and everyone knows who she is. In this unit, you will learn to use names or rules for number sequences and for equations of lines, such as y= 3x, so that everyone will know what you are talking about. And, just as people sometimes have similar characteristics, so do equations (y= 3xand y= 3x+ 4), and you will learn how such expressions and equations are related by investigating both their symbolic and graphical representations. You will also explore what happens when you add and subtract graphs and how to connect the results to the rules that generate the graphs.
In other MiC units, you learned how to solve linear equations. In this unit, you will revisit some of these strategies and study which ones make the most sense for different situations. And finally, you will discover some very interesting expressions that look different in symbols but whose geometric representations will help you see how the expressions are related. By the end of the unit, you will able to make “sense of symbols,” which is what algebra is all about.