Lesson: Using Determinants to Calculate Areas

Students will be able to

• find the area of a triangle using determinants
  • when given a graph of the triangle in the coordinate plane,
  • when given the coordinates of the triangle’s vertices,
• find the area of a parallelogram using determinants
  • when given a graph of the parallelogram in the coordinate plane,
  • when given at least 3 coordinates of the parallelogram’s vertices,
• determine whether three points are collinear by finding the area of the triangle they construct.