A System of Inequalities Desmos Activity

"I'm not going to be here Friday. You will have a substitute teacher," I told my class on Monday. After the obvious question of "Who's going to be the sub?", a few asked why I wasn't going to be in school.   I then realized this was a great opportunity for them to use a system of inequalities to determine where I was going, which was actually an exciting destination.  "You'll have to find out on Thursday when we do an activity." I answered.  Then the kids were off and guessing...a doctor's appointment, Florida, Canada, the high school for a meeting.  They guessed at lunch, in homeroom, after school, and my answer was always the same, "You'll have to wait and see, but I'm pretty excited about going."  You could tell that it was killing them! (And I loved it!)  Finally, Thursday arrived, and in each class, they rushed in, eager to figure out my "exciting" destination for the weekend. 

Before that day, I had to come up with the clues and hints that involved a system of linear inequalities. Students had to complete the hints one at a time with Desmos on laptops.  I created an "Activity" through teacher.desmos.com, which was basically directions and a map of the United States of America with several big cities labeled on it.  By making it an activity, it was a lot easier to distribute; however, you can always "share" graphs you make in Desmos as well.

Feel free to use/edit a copy of the Activity I created: Where in the U.S. is Mrs. Perretta?

We had previously learned about systems of linear inequalities in class, so students were familiar with slope, two-variable inequalities, linear relationships, graphing, systems, horizontal & vertical lines, etc.  Here is a copy of the "Activity" hints I used:  Activity Worksheet

Modification to worksheet:  To modify for some students, I might provide coordinate pairs to identify some of the cities in the worksheet!

Finally, while they were all completing the activity, I could watch their progress on the Activity Dashboard in Desmos.  It was really exciting to have them come up and whisper their result in my ear...."Are you really going to Los Angeles!?"  And with equal excitement, I replied, "Yes! Now...Shh...let the others figure it out! Don't tell!"  

This activity really hooked some of my students, and I hope that some find it helpful! Let me know what you think or how you use it by commenting below!  Feel free to share!

How did you use it??  What would you do differently??