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Example of shapes on a coordinate plane

Plotting points on a coordinate plane can help us draw shapes like rectangles! The points (1,1), (1,6), (9,6), and (9,1) form a rectangle. The x-coordinate tells us how far right to move, and the y-coordinate tells us how far up to go. The rectangle's height is the difference between the y-coordinates, which is 5.

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Video transcript

- [Instructor] So we're told here the four corners of a rectangle are located at the points (1,1), (1,6), (9,6) and (9,1). Plot the four corners of the rectangle on the coordinate plane below. And they gave us these four points and we can move them around with our mouse or our finger, depending on what type of a computer we are using. And so let's just go point by point and plot the green points at those points. So the first one is (1,1) and remember, the first coordinate is our x-coordinate. The second coordinate is our y-coordinate. So the first coordinate tells us how far do we move to the right of the origin. So it's one, and then the second coordinate, the y-coordinate, tells us how far to move up from the origin, so that's also a one. So (1,1). The next point is (1,6). X-coordinate is one. So we move one to the right of the origin and then the y-coordinate is six. So we move six up and notice it's at the intersection of the line ... Or it's at the intersection of when y equals six and x equals one. This is (1,6). Alright, now we have (9,6). So let's see, if we take our ... If we have x equals nine right over there and y is equal to six so we go up six. So notice y is now equal to six. And we have one last point to plot: (9,1). So when x is nine, y is one. We go nine to the right or we're right above x equals nine and then we go up one. This is (9,1) and there you have it. We have the four corners of our rectangle. Then they say what is the height of the rectangle? Well if you imagine a rectangle right over here, the height would be the distance between that point and this point or the distance between that point and that point and so what is the distance between these points? Let's see, they're on ... They both have the same x-coordinate and this one is at y equals six. This is at y equals one. So this is five higher than this one. So the height is five. And we can also count it. We could see one, two, three, four, five.