Today in math, each group were assigned to graph an exponential equation.

Our group had to graph the equation  .

We first made a table of values with x values from -10 to 10, then found the y values and plotted the points. We connected the points and the graph looked like this.

It had a curved line shaped as ‘L’ and most of the y values were closed to zero. The distance between the points was far when the x was negative, and the distance was short when the x was positive. This is because, when x is a negative number, y decreases rapidy. However, when x is a positive number, y decreases slowly. Even though it gets smaller and smaller, y never becomes zero.

After our group finished, we compared each other graphs with group 8. This is what their graph looked liked.

Their equation was .  The equation was the same except they had an negative exponent. Therefore, their graph is a reflection on the y-axis. If our graph looked like an ‘L’, group 8’s graph was the appearence of the opposite of ‘L’.

From this activity, I could easily understand integral exponents by looking at an visual graph of how the numbers are related. For example, (1/2)^3 is 1/8 while (1/2)^-3 is 8.