Statistics and The Real World.

Over the next couple of days I'm going to be exploring sources for statistics we can use in the classroom when we hit that part of the school year where we have to include touch on it.  Most schools I've taught at do not have a class on probability and statistics.  We are expected to include it in our regular classes which means, I have to figure out where it fits.

There is also the problem of finding statistics that have been done in a reasonable way rather than adjusted to fit the presenters point of view. In addition, most students see the problems in textbooks to be stupid.  They see no relevance but today, I'm sharing math lessons created by the United States Census Bureau for grades K to 12.  If a child is old enough, they might remember the census workers who visited in 2010.  The next time they are due to visit homes is in 2020. 

The link will take you to the Math page where it lists all the exercises with a name and the type of analysis used for the activity.  For instance, one says "Fitting a line to data - earnings and educational data.  This lesson is suggested for grade 8 but it could be used in high school easily.  It lists the learning objectives, materials needed, time required, and an activity description along with both teacher and student printed material.

The teacher packet is 15 pages long. It has everything listed on the main page, plus lists the common core and NCTM standards the activity meets.  Furthermore, it lists which of Bloom's Taxonomy adjectives it meets and provides information  for before and the activity before including all of the student pages complete with suggested answers.

All data is at the end of the three part activity.  Part one requires the student to plot the number of years of schooling with the average earnings, draw a line of best fit before finding the equation of the line based on y intercept and slope or two points.  Students are asked to compare the equations they came up with and discuss them.

The second part has them graph the same data broken down by sex.  They find the equation of the line for men and women before comparing their lines with the one from part one.  The final part of the activity requires students to write a one paragraph summary based on the data they plotted in parts 1 and 2.

If you are looking for an activity for a specific grade level, there are tabs listing K-5, 6-8, and 9-12 so it is easy to find the right one.  They have activities designed to help students learn more about frequency distribution, applying correlation coefficients, interpreting dots and box plots, creating and interpreting histograms, sampling means and viability, and looking at what is a statistical question.

In addition, the site provides teaching resource including data access tools which has three lessons designed for students to use some of these tools in class, games, warm-ups, and so many other resources, some are for math, some aren't. 

Check it out, see if you can use any.  I've seen several including the one I explored,  I can integrate into my math classes this week.  Have a great day.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.