Statistics and Probability has always been one of my favorite units to teach in Math.  I’ve always felt like this unit has so many real world applications that are engaging to students, so creating projects and activities based upon these concepts has always been an enjoyable and creative process.  In this unit, my students complete a project-based learning activity (which I will share in my next post) where they are asked to create a question, survey students on their question, and organize and analyze their data.  To introduce them to this process, my students participate in an activity where they survey students in their classroom about their shoe size.  Students are asked to determine the population and sample, gather and organize the data, determine the measures of central tendency, and draw conclusions from this data.  Overall, I have felt that this activity is a great introduction to the project and immediately engages students on upcoming projects, activities, and assignments.

Last year, my students completed this activity in Google Docs.  However, this year I felt that Google Slides would be a student-friendly way for them to interact with this activity.  Google Slides has quickly become one of my favorite Google apps because it can be used in so many ways beyond a simple presentation.  Students can easily interact with specific material on each slide, add/edit photos, insert charts linked to Sheets, and a variety of other features that extends the learning process for students.

To access this activity, view it below or click HERE.

Template

The “Analyzing Shoe Sizes” activity contains many mathematical concepts and student activities for students to complete.  Ideally, this activity would be appropriate for students in the 6th – 8th grade.  For my classroom, my students are 7th grade students and tend to come with a lot of background knowledge on these concepts.

Key Mathematical Concepts & Ideas:

• Identify the population and sample of a survey.
• Create a frequency table.
• Create a bar chart and pie chart.
• Calculate the mean, median, mode, and range.

Student Activities:

In this activity, students will be asked to:

• Gather data on the shoe sizes of ten students in their class.
• Determine the population and sample of the survey they have completed.
• Organize the data they have gathered into a frequency table.
• Create bar and pie charts with Google Sheets.
• Calculate the mean, median, mode, and range.
• Analyze and describe their findings from the data they have gathered.

Student Example

By the time my students complete this activity, they have a good understanding of the concepts and activities in their upcoming project.  In addition to this, they tend to be very excited about the idea of choosing their own question and surveying students outside of the classroom.  As I mentioned before, I will share this project in an upcoming post and I cannot wait to get feedback on this project.

As always, if you use this activity in your classroom, let me know how it goes.  I love feedback!