TABLE TENNIS, ANYONE? USING PING-PONG TO TEACH THE COORDINATE PLANE

摘要

During a first-year-algebra class, tenth- and eleventh-grade students, overhearing the sounds of a Ping-Pong game from downstairs, voiced a strong desire to play. This incident led the authors to stumble onto the idea of using Ping-Pong to teach coordinate geometry. From this inquiry by interested students came the idea of using a Ping-Pong table as the visual anchor on which to situate the coordinate plane.