Eye to Eye

Students learn to pose mathematical questions about themselves and their surroundings through class. They gather data about eye color from their classmates and another class within their school. They organize this data to answer questions. Students work together or alone to sort objects by different rules. The lesson consists of four segments:

  • Launching the Lesson
  • Conducting the Lesson
  • Assessing Student Understanding of the Lesson
  • Extending the Lesson

This is a two-day lesson. Activities each day should take approximately 45 minutes.

Weblink address (URL): 
Eye to Eye

Standards & Objectives

Learning objectives: 

Learning Objectives:

Students will:

  • Formulate questions that can be addressed with data.
  • Collect, organize, and display relevant data to answer questions.
  • Analyze data to answer questions.
  • Develop an understanding of the purpose of data collection and the use of data.

NCTM Standards and Expectations:

  • Pose questions and gather data about themselves and their surroundings.
  • Represent data using concrete objects, pictures, and graphs.
  • Describe parts of the data and the set of data as a whole to determine what the data show.

Lesson Variations

Blooms taxonomy level: 
Understanding
Extension suggestions: 

Extensions:

  • Look up a site that contains an illustrated picture of the human eye. Share different terms and research for more information about the parts of the eye.
  • Have students look up the most common eye color.
  • Give students blank bar graphs or circle graphs (with appropriate labels) and ask them to represent the data collected in the alternate format. Have students compare the different types of graphs.

References

Contributors: 
Sarah Lasater
Originator: 
Ayers Institute for Learning & Innovation