Middle Grades Math: Analyzing Country Data

Objectives

• Students will determine and interpret percents to summarize data.
• Students will interpret medians and quartiles to summarize sample data. Use measures of center and measures of variability to draw informal comparative inferences about two populations.
• Students will compare and contrast different sample data summarized by box plots and histograms. They will assess the degree of visual overlap of two numerical data distributions.
• Students will construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
• Students will use appropriate tools strategically.

Vocabulary

• boxplot
• dot plot
• histogram
• median
• population
• quartiles
• sample

About the Lesson

This activity involves sample listings of the ages of 200 people from each of three countries: USA, Kenya, and Japan.

Students will:

• Consider why a summary of ages is important and how a summary of the ages can be connected to a better understanding of the populations of each country.
• Examine sample ages from the three countries displayed in a spreadsheet and in histograms with percent on the vertical scale that highlight the distinctive features of the distribution of the ages from each sample.
• Connect descriptions of the histograms to summaries based on box plots.
• Learn that samples are not exact pictures of the population but sample statistics can provide a reasonable way to develop estimates of the total populations of each country.
• As an extension, students create a sample of their “own” country and put together a summary of the country based on the sample.