Big Ideas Math: Modeling Real Life, Grade 8
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3. Graphing Proportional Relationships
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Exercise 19 Page 160

Substitute the given information into the equation. Can you recognize a constant of proportionality?

Solution: Yes, they are proportional.
Graph:

Practice makes perfect

Let's begin by recalling the definition of a proportional relationship.

When two quantities x and y are proportional, the relationship between them can be represented by the equation y= mx.

In this equation m is the constant of proportionality. We are asked to consider the distance equation.

d=rt In this equation d is the distance (in feet), r is the rate (in feet per second), and t is the time (in seconds). Since we know that we run for 50 seconds, we can substitute 50 for t into the above formula. d=r( 50) ⇒ d=50r We can see that now our formula represents a proportional relationship because one quantity — distance — is equal to the other quantity — rate — multiplied by a constant value.

Graph

Since we want to use a graph to justify our answer, let's make a table of values for our distance formula.

r d=50r d (r,d)
0 d=50( 0) 0 ( 0, 0)
1 d=50( 1) 50 ( 1, 50)
2 d=50( 2) 100 ( 2, 100)
3 d=50( 3) 150 ( 3, 150)

Let's plot the ordered pairs and draw a line through the points. Our line will be only in the first quadrant of the coordinate plane because negative values of rate do not make sense.

We obtain a line with a slope of 50 that passes through the origin. Therefore, our equation is a proportional relationship.