How Do You Organize the Counties in Your State?

This is a link to a unit of study consisting of four lessons that utilizes United States Census Bureau population data to collect and analyze data. Lesson 1 - Exploring Our County This is an introductory lesson for students to access and investigate the U.S. Census Bureau's website. Lesson 2 - What Counties Are Your Favorite? This is the data gathering step for this unit. Students will compile data about ten counties of their choice. The students will represent this data by representing numbers in various ways such as standard, written, and expanded form. Lesson 3 - Spreadsheets and Census Data In this lesson, students will organize the data collected about county populations into a spreadsheet and create a graph. Lesson 4 - Comparing Counties This is the final lesson in the unit. Students analyze their data by finding the range, median, and mode. They will then compare their data with a peer. This unit gives students the opportunity to gather, organize, and analyze data.

Weblink address (URL):

How Do You Organize the Counties in Your State?

Standards & Objectives

Learning objectives:

Students will:

Collect and classify data.
Create a bar graph with several categories of data.
Pose and answer questions about a set of data.
Find the range and mode of a data set.

Essential and guiding questions:

How many of us had brown eyes? Blue eyes? Other colors of eyes?
Which color did the fewest students have? What is the difference between the number of students with black eyes and those with green eyes?
What do we call the difference between the largest number and the smallest? What is the range of the data that we collected on eye color?
Suppose you add my eye color to the graph. How would adding my color change the graph? Would it change the range?
What color did more students have than any other? How can you tell by looking at the bar graph? What do we call the eye color that appears the most often?

Lesson Variations

Blooms taxonomy level:

Understanding

Extension suggestions:

You may wish to link this lesson to a life science unit. Students can discuss the functions of the eye, specifically the iris and eye color.
Move on to the next lesson, Up on Top.

Helpful Hints

Materials:

Index cards
Crayons
Chart Paper
Graph Paper
Bar Grapher

References

Contributors:

Originator:

Ayers Institute for Learning & Innovation

eduToolbox® is a resource-sharing portal developed by the Ayers Institute for Learning & Innovation with collaborative support and funding from the Tennessee Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Education's Math & Science Partnership program.