NZ curriculum year 9. Example and description of how to write a distance vs time graph.

1. Distance vs. Time

2. Distance, Speed
and Time
Speed = distance (in metres)
time (in seconds)
D
TS
1) Dave walks 200 metres in 40 seconds. What is his speed?
2) Laura covers 2km in 1,000 seconds. What is her speed?
3) How long would it take to run 100 metres if you run at 10m/s?
4) Steve travels at 50m/s for 20s. How far does he go?
5) Susan drives her car at 85mph (about 40m/s). How long does it
take her to drive 20km?

3. A snail’s journey
Anna-Sophie observed a snail and
decided to measure how far it crawls.
She used the stopwatch in her cell
phone and a ruler. In her experiment
she placed a little piece of lettuce in
the path of the snail. She recorded
her measurements in a table:

4. 9912
7411
6710
659
658
657
656
635
40.54
193
92
41
00
Distance from start / cmTime / min
Distance and time measurements of a snail’s journey

5. Remember:
Label /
unit
Label / unit
Numbers on the lines
Numbers on the
lines
Title for the graph

6. Successful Drawing of Graphs
Distance versus time graph for a snail
Distance/cm
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
110
120
Time / minutes
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

7. 9912
7411
6710
659
658
657
656
635
40.54
193
92
41
00
Distance from start / cmTime / min
Distance and time measurements of a snail’s journey
Draw a
distance
versus time
graph of the
journey.

8. Distance versus time graph for a snail
• When did the snail eat the
little lettuce leaf?
• When did it spot the
lettuce leaf?
• How far from the starting
point had the snail been
when it spotted the leaf?
• When was the snail at its
fastest speed?
• For how long did the snail
feed on the leaf?
Distance/cm
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
110
120
Time / minutes
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12