Statistics

Lesson 1

Math

Unit 8

6th Grade

Lesson 1 of 14

Objective


Define and identify statistical questions.

Common Core Standards


Core Standards

  • 6.SP.A.1 — Recognize a statistical question as one that anticipates variability in the data related to the question and accounts for it in the answers. For example, "How old am I?" is not a statistical question, but "How old are the students in my school?" is a statistical question because one anticipates variability in students' ages.
  • 6.SP.B.5.A — Reporting the number of observations.

Criteria for Success


  1. Understand a statistical question as a question that can be answered by collecting data and where you anticipate there to be variation in the responses you collect. 
  2. Identify statistical questions.
  3. Distinguish between numerical and categorical data.

Tips for Teachers


  • Statistics is a new concept for sixth graders. They may benefit from an introduction of the benefits and power of statistics as a launch into this lesson. This video, "Statistics in Schools - Why Statistics?" is student-friendly and introduces statistics from the perspective of the US Census Bureau.
  • As an optional ongoing project throughout this unit, students can write their own statistical questions that they want to collect data on and then analyze and represent that data in various ways as they go through the lessons in the unit. For example, students can create a dot plot to represent their data in Lesson 2, discuss outliers or clusters in their data in Lesson 3, find the measures of center of their data in Lessons 5–7, etc. Since sampling is not covered until seventh grade, students may need some guidance in collecting their data via surveys, observations, etc.
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Anchor Problems

25-30 minutes


Problem 1

Ten sixth-grade students at a school were each asked five survey questions. Their answers to each question are shown here.

data set A 0 1 1 3 0 0 0 2 1 1
data set B 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12
data set C 6 5 7 6 4 5 3 4 6 8
data set D 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
data set E 3 7 9 11 6 4 2 16 6 10

The five survey questions are shown below. 

a.   Match each question to a data set that could represent the students’ answers. Explain your reasoning.

Question 1: Flip a coin 10 times. How many heads did you get?

Question 2: How many books did you read in the last year?

Question 3: What grade are you in?

Question 4: How many dogs and cats do you have?

Question 5: How many inches are in 1 foot?

b.   Discuss with a partner: How are Question 3 and Question 5 different from the other questions?

Guiding Questions

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Student Response

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References

Open Up Resources Grade 6 Unit 8 Lesson 2Lesson 2.2 "What's in the Data?"

Grade 6 Unit 8 Lesson 2 is made available by Open Up Resources under the CC BY 4.0 license. Copyright © 2017 Open Up Resources. Download for free at openupresources.org. Accessed April 3, 2018, 1:07 p.m..

Modified by Fishtank Learning, Inc.

Problem 2

Which of the following are statistical questions? Explain your reasoning for each one.

  1. How many days are in March?
  2. How old is your dog?
  3. On average, how old are the dogs that live on this street?
  4. What proportion of the students at your school like watermelon?
  5. Do you like watermelon?
  6. How many bricks are in this wall?
  7. What was the temperature at noon today at City Hall?

Guiding Questions

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Student Response

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References

Illustrative Mathematics Identifying Statistical Questions

Identifying Statistical Questions, accessed on April 3, 2018, 1:08 p.m., is licensed by Illustrative Mathematics under either the CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. For further information, contact Illustrative Mathematics.

Problem 3

Marcus has 25 baseball cards. Each card is worth a different amount of money. The cards also represent players from different teams in the MLB (Major League Baseball).

There are two types of data that we can collect—numerical and categorical.

a.   What is an example of numerical data that Marcus can collect about his baseball cards?

b.   What is an example of categorical data that Marcus can collect about his baseball cards?

Guiding Questions

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Student Response

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References

EngageNY Mathematics Grade 6 Mathematics > Module 6 > Topic A > Lesson 1Example 3

Grade 6 Mathematics > Module 6 > Topic A > Lesson 1 of the New York State Common Core Mathematics Curriculum from EngageNY and Great Minds. © 2015 Great Minds. Licensed by EngageNY of the New York State Education Department under the CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US license. Accessed Dec. 2, 2016, 5:15 p.m..

Modified by Fishtank Learning, Inc.

Problem Set

15-20 minutes


Give your students more opportunities to practice the skills in this lesson with a downloadable problem set aligned to the daily objective.

Target Task

5-10 minutes


Last night, Jennifer and her family went out for dinner. The questions below came up on their way to the restaurant or during the meal. Decide whether or not each question is a statistical question.

a.   How far are we from the restaurant?

b.   How long will it be until we get there?

c.   Would Jennifer rather have burgers or pizza?

d.   How much should we leave for the tip?

e.   What was the first dish ordered in the restaurant this evening?

f.   Do customers at the restaurant like pizza?

g.   What is a typical bill for tables at this restaurant?

h.   On average, how many people were sitting at each table this evening?

i.   Which of the statistical questions above would give numerical data? Which would give categorical data?

Student Response

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References

Illustrative Mathematics Statistical Questions

Statistical Questions, accessed on April 3, 2018, 10:41 a.m., is licensed by Illustrative Mathematics under either the CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. For further information, contact Illustrative Mathematics.

Modified by Fishtank Learning, Inc.

Additional Practice


The following resources include problems and activities aligned to the objective of the lesson that can be used for additional practice or to create your own problem set.

Next

Describe data that is represented in a dot plot. Represent data using dot plots and frequency tables.

Lesson 2
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Lesson Map

A7CB09C2-D12F-4F55-80DB-37298FF0A765

Topic A: Understanding Statistics & Distributions

Topic B: Measurements of Center & Variability

Topic C: Box Plots & Circle Graphs

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