Question

You are at a football game and the team you are pulling for gained 7 yards on their first play of the game. Then lost 8 yards. How could you find the change in yardage?

Answer 1

Draw out a number line. Start at 0. Then move 7 units to the right to represent gaining 7 yards. The end zone is somewhere off to the right.

Then move 8 units to the left to represent losing 8 yards. So we're moving away from the end zone. You should end up at -1 on the number line.

This means 0 + 7 - 8 = -1 or simply 7 - 8 = -1

At the end of the second down, the team has lost 1 yard.

Check out the diagram below. The diagram is something you can draw for your teacher, or you can verbally describe what's going on.