Dig the Data

Teacher Page

Is there some question or issue your school or class is debating?

Graphs can help you organize, analyze and represent information.

Activity Preface

(all text on the right can be heard by clicking on the audio play button to the left if you have speakers or headphones)

Collecting information and making sense of it is an important skill, and it's likely you do it more frequently than you realize.

The stats for a sports game, for the number of friends you have, friends on a social networking site, number of text messages you receive or send, are all pieces of data.
One of the National educational technology goals for students to be successful in careers and life states, "Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information."
So think of taking your cell phone bill and analyzing the information over the past year to see how many minutes you use in peak cost times, and perhaps how many text messages you had. Then using that information you could make a comparison of different phone plans to see which one would meet your normal use and also be the least expensive.
Another use of data would be to take your grades in a class, find out how your teacher calculates your final grade, and then use a spreadsheet program or graphing calculator type of application to do some 'what if' thinking.
'What if' the college you want to apply to requires a certain grade point average. Then you could figure out what grade you need on your final exam, or different projects for instance to 'make the grade.'

Chart available in larger format click here

These are the results from 7 different studies from 2004-2007. It shows that between 28.7 and 20.8 of the students studied in the past two years have been victimized by cyberbullying.

Having knowledge and technology skills which prepare you for success in the future is our goal.

You see math and data collection in action daily as they are used to calculate the winners of MTV awards, Dancing With the Stars, and our elected officials.
U.S. President Obama and teams of educators and business representatives have identified skills which are critical for employees, or individuals looking for a job.
The three R's (Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic), and four C's (Critical thinking and problem solving, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity).
Over 2,000 managers and executives were asked why these skills are important for you to have. 91% said it was due the how fast things are changing today, 86.5% identified the competition from across the globe, 77.5% said it's the nature of how work is done today, and 66.3% said it is because of the way organizations are structured today.
So what did they say about how prepared their current workers are?
Only 38.1% said employees had effective communication skills, and only 46.7% said their employees were above average in collaboration and team building. (April 15, 2010 Report)
Building these skills will help prepare you for success in careers you pursue in the future, which is why we have included these in many of the activities in this 21things project.

Teen use of Technology (enlarged chart)

Take a look at this study (2010) of over 4,000 students. This looked at the use of technology weekly by teens (10-18 years old). How would this type of information help your school district or parents make some decisions on making technologies available? You will be asked to do your own survey study, collect the information and graph it, and then analyze the results.

The information and site these graphs came from is the Cyberbullying research center.

Collecting Data Video Example

You might be interested in watching this 5 minute narrated video from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills as a Kindergarten class collects and graphs data.

Activity

The skills you will use for this activity are similar to those used in CSI investigations. You will:

Identify and define a real problem around a significant question.
Carry out your own research by collecting data using a survey
Collect and analyze the data using a digital graphing tool (online web site or graphing calculator)

Basic Activity

Identify a question or issue (critical thinking). This can be something at school, such as something that is a 'hot topic' (could be about number of minutes passing between classes, whether you can wear caps in the hall, whether you can have a cell phone at school... you're the investigator here - pick an issue. (You could talk with your math teacher to get some ideas that might relate to your school work.)
Create a survey and collect your data (creativity). You can make your survey anonymous by just collecting yes and no answers, or you can use a rating scale 1 to 5 or 1 to 10. If your classmates use email, you could email them the survey. If you have access to Google docs you could create a 'form' and send them a link to it. Go to the section about Measurement and Types of Scales for help on picking a scale to use for your investigation-survey.
Analyzing and Evaluating (problem-solving and critical thinking). Once you have collected the results, create two different charts of the results. You can use this free online graphing web site: Kids'Zone or at Illuminations Graph Creator .
Present your results and share them (critical thinking and communication). Create a presentation about your investigation and share your results with others. You will now analyze your survey results, and discuss your conclusions. Put your presentation on the web using a creative tool such as: Blogster, Prezi, Animoto, VoiceThread, Google presentations, a Wiki or Blog. If you picked a topic with two sides, give arguments for each side of the issue.

Click the button for an activity running a simulated Lemonade Stand. Make money and track it in a spreadsheet.

Click the button for a spreadsheet activity. Take a look at Suzy's cell phone usage and create a chart.

Car Cruising Activity

Click the button on the left to read the activity. Below is a Microsoft Excel Worksheet which you can download and use, or create your own to contain the fields and 3 worksheets shown below. You might want to create one in Google Docs.

Filter, Sort, Chart, Report

This activity takes you to the next level in a spreadsheet. You will Sort, Filter, Chart, and create a Pivot table as you work with the country data we've provided.

carcruising_worksheet.xls
File Size:	44 kb
File Type:	xls

Download File

Sort it Out .xls file available to download directly here to use with this activity.

Connections

NETS-S: 1.a, 1.b, 4.a, 4.b, 4.c, 4.d. 6.b
METS-S: 6-8 CI.2, CT.2, CT.3, RI.1, RI.2, RI.5, CC.3

Carolyn McCarthy, Shiawassee RESD
Jennifer Parker-Moore, Ed.D., MacombISD

21things4students by REMC-RITS is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at 21things4teachers.net.