Lesson: Perpendicular Distance from a Point to a Line on the Coordinate Plane Mathematics

Students will be able to

• recall that the distance from a point to the line is given by the formula
• use the formula to calculate the distance from a point to a line (the line may be given in vector form),
• calculate the unknowns in a coordinate of a point given the equation of a line and its distance from the line,
• use the formula to find the distance between two parallel lines,
• find the possible equations for a line at a specified perpendicular distance from a point,
• find the area of a given polygon on the coordinate plane using the concept of the distance between a point and a line.