Using the "Geese on the Hessian Lake"
Mother Goose "Scatterplot" is interested in teaching her offspring to follow a straight line. She is training them to follow her when searching for food.
The x-axis represents the distance to the food which is perpendicular
to the y-axis which is the distance from the shore line. How close
to a straight line are the geese?
Click anyplace on the map to move the cursor to that point.
Notice the readout at the upper right gives the location of the cursor measured in pixels from the lower left corner of the lake.
You can fine tune the location of the cursor by clicking on the four arrows at the left, right, top, and bottom of the lake. Each click moves the cursor one pixel in the direction indicated by the arrow.
Click the blue button, labeled "Mark point," to record the coordinates of a point. Click it each time that you have moved the cursor to a new point whose coordinates you want to record.Click the red button, labeled "Show points," to display the coordinates of the points whose coordinates you have recorded. A new window will appear with the information that you have recorded.
Click the black button, labeled "Clear points," to clear the list of recorded points.
Using your graphing calculator enter the points and find the line of best-fit!