Homework for Thursday, December 4

Assignment: Sodas worksheet

Due: Friday, December 5

Yes, it's another adventure in graph reading! 

REAL graph reading. ;-)

Remember that the "tricky" part of this worksheet is thinking about how the bar graph represents actual DATA. We've collected random chaos, made organized lists, and figured the central tendencies from that data. Now they will need to convert the graph (whether in their head or on paper) back to the collection of data (an organized list) in order to determine those again. 

*I strongly recommend drawing clear, straight lines on the graph. Use a ruler!
*They are not required to convert the graphs back into data on paper, but do need to think about what that data would look like as a list. (see below)
*When asked to explain how they got their answer, write an answer! The key is to explain how they are thinking mathematically ... that is actually the challenge of this assignment.

So, how can you help?

First, because it will seriously help to have straight lines to work with, feel free to help them draw those lines, especially if they struggle with that skill. Keep a ruler handy too!

The trick to a bar graph is that the data is not represented "by" a bar, the data is embedded into the bar. So a bar with a y value of 3 units is actually that x value three times ... or in an organized list x, x, x. 

When we worked on these in class, the students used grid paper to mark the values first. It reminded them how many times a value was being used. So pull out the graph paper to get started. How many students drink 0 sodas a day? Then your organized list has that many "0" values. Start with perhaps 10 values on the graph paper and then recall how those 10 values would look in a bar graph vs an organized list. See if they can recall that process.

But you don't want to make an organized list of 100 values, right? So can you manually count the values represented in the bars (1 box) until you get to the 50th and 51st values? Yes.

The thing about statistics and reading a graph accurately is that it's tough, so I don't expect this worksheet to be either easy or fast. It's review with a few weeks of rest between, so it will require some calling back of how to do these. But the more we practice, the more it will stick. So hang in there with them.  Help them to gain confidence in growing like their new mathematical self!