Interpreting slope and y-intercept of lines of best fit

The  exercise appears under the 8th grade (U.S.) Math Mission. This exercise practices explaining the meaning of slope and y-intercept for lines of best fit on scatter plots.

Types of problems
There is one type of problem in this exercise:
 * 1) Assuming the line correctly shows the trend in the data, what does it mean that the line's y-intercept is ___?: This problem features a real-life example of slopes being used, and students are asked to find what it means when the y-intercept equals a certain number, assuming that the line correctly shows the trend in the data.Interpreting slope and y-intercept of lines of best fit.PNG

Strategies
Basic knowledge of scatter plots are required for success while doing this exercise.
 * 1) A good scatter plot has the independent variable on the x-axis and the dependent variable on the y-axis. The scale of both axes should be reasonable, making the data as easy to read as possible.

Real-life applications

 * 1) Slope is intimately tied to calculus and the derivative, so any reference to slope can find importance in the calculus.
 * 2) Being able to recognize slope quickly can assist recognizing if answers are correct when checking work.