This post provides details for a discovery activity for intercepts. Students shop for tacos and burritos at Taco Bell. They are to find combinations of number of tacos and number of burritos. This will include no tacos or no burritos. The activity is provided on a Google Doc.
Overview
Student prior knowledge is leveraged to provide a meaning making activity. The concept of intercepts is developed through 0 tacos or 0 burritos. Here are the steps for the activity.
- The students are tasked with spending the entire balance of the $30 in gift cards on tacos and burritos.
- They are to find all the combinations that are possible.
- Students enter the combinations into a table found on a linked graph on Desmos. The image below shows the final product, upon completion.
- Then they are tasked to identify the two combinations that standout in the table.
- Finally, they unpack why these two combinations are unique in the graph.
- At that point, the teacher can present the “mathy” term, intercepts.

Google Doc
Below are images of a Google Doc with the activity. You have to make a copy to edit it. Here is the link to the Demos graph with blank table and labeled axes. It is included in the Google Doc.