Unit Circle: A Step by Step Guide

This lesson walks a student through each step on how to create a unit circle. It begins by creating the various special angles (in degrees and radians) using a protractor and different colored pencils. Once the angles are created the lesson shows the student how to determine the coordinates of each point corresponding to each angle.

After the unit circle is completed the student is then shown how to use the circle to calculate the sine, cosine, and tangent values of the various angles. The lesson ends with a brief description of reference angles and how the two ratio identities of tangent and cotangent are derived.

This presentation contains the instructional PowerPoint and a printable PDF document with a blank unit circle and the two special right triangles that correspond to the PowerPoint.

This presentation was made using PowerPoint 2013 and MathType version 6.9.