Data Investigations

Unit Summary

In Unit 5, students develop the ability to organize, represent, and interpret categorical data with up to three categories. They ask and answer questions about the total number of data points, how many are in each category, and how many more or fewer are in one category than in another. Students represent data using tables and tallies, and begin to make sense of simple visual representations, establishing the groundwork for formal work with picture and bar graphs in 2nd grade.

In Kindergarten, students classified and counted objects into two given categories, laying the foundation for this unit’s work with organizing, representing, and interpreting categorical data with up to three categories. In earlier 1st grade units, students engaged with most story problem types, with the exception of the two compare subtypes identified in the Progressions as particularly challenging. Building on this experience, students now apply familiar problem-solving strategies to new contexts involving data. They revisit problem types such as put together/take apart with total unknown and compare with difference unknown, now framed within data sets. This unit also introduces the final two problem subtypes new to 1st grade, compare with bigger unknown and compare with smaller unknown, where the language of the problem suggests the “wrong” operation. These subtypes require students to reason flexibly about the relationship between quantities and deepen their understanding of comparison.

Throughout the unit, students use a range of tools and representations, including linking cubes, drawings, tallies, and graphs, to collect, organize, and analyze data MP.5 Use appropriate tools strategically. . Teachers support students in making sense of how data can be used to tell a story, answer questions, and draw conclusions, while encouraging precision in how data is collected and interpreted MP.6 Attend to precision. .

This unit supports important mathematical thinking that extends across domains. As students solve problems involving data, they continue to apply and strengthen their understanding of addition and subtraction within 20 1.OA.A.1 Use addition and subtraction within 20 to solve word problems involving situations of adding to, taking from, putting together, taking apart, and comparing, with unknowns in all positions, e.g., by using objects, drawings, and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem.  and the relationships between numbers. Looking ahead, this work lays the foundation for future units in which students will represent and solve more complex problems, including those involving two-digit numbers and place value 1.NBT.B.2 Understand that the two digits of a two-digit number represent amounts of tens and ones. Understand the following as special cases:   1.NBT.C.4 Add within 100, including adding a two-digit number and a one-digit number, and adding a two-digit number and a multiple of 10, using concrete models or drawings and strategies based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction; relate the strategy to a written method and explain the reasoning used. Understand that in adding two-digit numbers, one adds tens and tens, ones and ones; and sometimes it is necessary to compose a ten. , and prepares them to engage with bar graphs and scaled picture graphs in Grade 2 2.MD.D.10 Draw a picture graph and a bar graph (with single-unit scale) to represent a data set with up to four categories. Solve simple put-together, take-apart, and compare problems using information presented in a bar graph. .