OVERVIEW:
The purpose behind this activity is to get students to identify traits that they have, and to record these on a chart, a way to introduce statistics. This activity/center will link personal aspects of the students to mathematical concepts such as average, mean, median, mode, and range. There is a variety of ways that you could use this center, however I am focusing on eye color, hair color, and house pets/animals. Other ideas for this center include favorite food/restaurant, color, music, etc.
PURPOSE:
The purpose of this activity/center is to start the student’s thought processes about charting and basic statistics. This activity is a springboard into more detailed statistical concepts and activities.
OBJECTIVES:
1. Create artistic representations of eye color, hair color,, and house pets
2. Create a chart to represent each of the above
3. Analyze the created charts, and illustrate what mean, median, mode, and range are by discussing the terminology (i.e. statistical inference).
RESOURCES AND MATERIALS:
Charts, cut out eye shapes, glitter, stickers/cut-outs, fruit loops, markers/crayons, glue sticks, ribbons, and student information sheet (see attached).
ACTIVITIES AND PROCEDURES:
1. Begin by introducing the concept of charting, ask the children if they know of any examples of charts, and what they could be used for.
2. Divide the class into 3 groups, per each center.
3. In the first station, the students are to design their personal “eye” representation as to illustrate their own eye color using an array of materials (fruit loops, markers, glitter, markers, etc.). They then find the area on the chart that their “eye” will be placed, such as “blue”, “brown”, “green/hazel/gray”, or “other”, and use the glue stick to attach it.
4. In the second station, the students need to select a way to represent their hair, using ribbons, crayons, markers, etc. Then they will attach their representation onto the appropriate section of the chart with the glue stick.
5. In the third station, the students will draw or pick a cut-out of their personal house pet or animal (or they can draw an animal that they wish to have if they have none, and put it in the “wish” category), and attach that representation onto the chart with the glue stick.
6. After each student has completed the station, take each of the charts to the front of the room and display them on an easel or blackboard so that each student can see the charts. Ask the students questions about what is the animal that most of the students have at home, or what is the most common eye color, what is the least common color of hair found in the classroom, etc.
7. The next step is to begin linking the statistical language into their findings, ask them to find exactly how many “eyes” are on the chart, or how many “hairs” are on the chart, or how many “animals” on the chart. Then begin to introduce the concept of data points, or how many “viewpoints” or students there are in the classroom that participated.
8. Next, introduce the concept of average or mean. Ask the students what they think an average is, and make sure that they are all on the same page of their working definition before you introduce the dual term, MEAN! An average or mean is obtained by adding all of the data points/values, and dividing that number by the number of observations. For example, add up all of the brown “eyes” in the chart, and divide them by the total number of participating students, and you will get the decimal percentage of the brown eye color. If there are 20 students with brown eyes, and there are 40 total participating students, the brown eyed students, will make up 50% of the classroom or .50, and vice versa.
9. To introduce the concept of median, first ask the students what they think of when they hear the word: MEDIAN. It sounds a lot like medium, and that is really what it can be interpreted as. Arrange the data in order from smallest to largest, and the median value will be the value that is in the middle. For example, if your class has 20 students, and 1 has red hair, 1 has no hair, 3 have blonde hair, 7 have black hair, and 8 have brown hair, the median value would be expressed as: 1 1 3 7 8 , and 3 would be your median value. If the number of your data points is odd, the median would be like the one above, in the middle. If it is an even number, it would be the average of the two data points nearest to the middle of the set.
10. You can introduce mode by telling the class that it is the number or characteristic in this case that they see the most, so if the vast majority of the students have blue eyes, the mode would be blue!
11. The last concept that I recommend that you discuss in this exercise is range, ask the students what they think range is, my own 4 year old said “like home on the range?”. The range is found by taking the highest and lowest data points/values on the chart, and subtracting them. This is the range!
12. There are many other ways that you can discuss and analyze the statistical terminology found by completing this chart. It is a springboard for many other questions that the students can ask and explore!