Scale Factor Right Triangle Exploration
Dilation Exploration
Drag the scale to change the scale factor and observe what happens to the triangle. Then, answer the questions below the applet.
Dilation Questions:
1) Record the coordinates of triangle ABC.
2) Change the scale factor to 2. What are the coordinates of triangle A'B'C'? What operation should you use to change triangle ABC to triangle A'B'C' by a scale factor of 2?
3) Change the scale factor to 3. What are the coordinates of triangle A'B'C'? What operation should you use to change triangle ABC to triangle A'B'C' by a scale factor of 3?
4) Change the scale factor to 0.5. What are the coordinates of triangle A'B'C'? Explain what happened to the size of the triangle and the math behind why this happened.
Bonus:
5) Change the scale factor to -2. Describe what happened to triangle A'B'C'. Record the new coordinates. Use what you know about dilation to prove that the applet is correct in its placement of triangle A'B'C'. In other words, do the math to determine the dilation for each coordinate of triangle ABC with a scale factor of -2.