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# Only when you need

Xavier Bordoy

Keywords
"blog" "funcions" "funció afí" "graficar" "representar graficament" "línia"
Abstract

How I enriched a non-interesting activity of proportionality

I posed this problem in class:

In a certain city, gas service is paying 15 € fixed a month and 0.75 € for each cubic meter consumed.

1. How much do you pay for $3 m^3$? And for $5 m^3$
2. Plot the function which relates consumed cubic meters and the cost of the service

When do you need the formula of the relation there? Clearly you could get (a) without a formula. And you could plot the points using value table (with previosly calculated values in (a) if you want) but you need the formula of the relation ($cost = 15 + 0.75 meter$) for assuring that you could join the points with a straight line (using the theoric fact that: afine functions correspond to straight lines). Otherwise you would not know if the plot is a straight line or a curve.

My students understood more clearly the connection between plots and functions when I ask them for which step needs here the formula.