American Statistical Association
Bubble Trouble!
Which fluids make the best bubbles? Pupils experiment with multiple fluids to determine which allows for the largest bubbles before popping. They gather data, analyze it in multiple ways, and answer analysis questions proving they...
Statistics Education Web
Consuming Cola
Caffeine affects your heart rate — or does it? Learners study experimental design while conducting their own experiment. They collect heart rate data after drinking a caffeinated beverage, create a box plot, and draw conclusions. They...
American Statistical Association
Don't Spill the Beans!
Become a bean counter. Pupils use a fun activity to design and execute an experiment to determine whether they can grab more beans with their dominant hand or non-dominant hand. They use the class data to create scatter plots and then...
Pulitzer Center
International Aid and Fragile States
"States suffering from internal conflict, weak infrastructures, lack of economic development, and general instability are emerging as a large threat to the international security." What factors contribute to the creation of a fragile...
Virginia Department of Education
Normal Distributions
Pupils work to find probabilities by using areas under the normal curve. Groups work to calculate z-scores and solve real-world problems using the empirical rule or tables.
Baylor College
HIV/AIDS in the United States
In the final of five lessons about HIV/AIDS, groups create presentations to share data about the infection rates in the United States, examining demographic and geographic trends over the past ten years. Depending on how much time you...
Visa
A Perfect Fit: Finding the Right Career for You
Class members explore possible career paths and consider their own passions and interests by researching job openings, career descriptions, and skills, as well as reading the success stories of experienced entrepreneurs.
Advocates for Human Rights
Voices of Iraqi Refugees
The stated goal of this resource is to provide learners with basic facts about and build empathy for Iraqi refugees. To do so elementary classes develop a plan for how to welcome refugees to their classroom. Middle schoolers read...
School Improvement in Maryland
Socio-Economic Goals of the Government
Equity. Increased productivity. Price stability. Environmental protection. Decreased poverty. Governments establish socio-economic goals and then must design and fund programs to address these goals. Groups investigate various programs...
Federal Reserve Bank
Market Basket SMART/ActivInspire Lesson Plan
Inflate your knowledge, not the economy! Pupils learn more about inflation with detailed worksheets and exciting activities such as role play, an interactive PowerPoint presentation, and a project in which they design a podcast on...
Pulitzer Center
Revolution in Tunisia
How much do your pupils really know about the revolution in Tunisia? In order to inform your class and spark discussion, first create a country profile, comparing and contrasting Tunisia with the United States. Learners then analyze the...
NASA
What's the Frequency, Roy G. Biv?
While all light travels at the same speed, each color in the visible light spectrum contains a different wavelength and frequency. Scholars determine the relationship between frequency and wavelength as they complete the activity. They...
Curated OER
Edible Numbers
Believe it or not, this is a 76-page series of lesson plans published by the California Commission on Agriculture which is designed to teach upper-elementary learners about agricultural practices and products in the state. There are two...
Statistics Education Web
Text Messaging is Time Consuming! What Gives?
The more you text, the less you study. Have classes test this hypothesis or another question related to text messages. Using real data, learners use technology to create a scatter plot and calculate a regression line. They create a dot...
American Statistical Association
Armspans
Young mathematicians collect data on the arm spans of classmates. Then they sort the data by measures of center, spread, and standard deviation. Finally, they compare groups, such as boys and girls, to interpret any differences.
American Statistical Association
EllipSeeIt: Visualizing Strength and Direction of Correlation
Seeing is believing. Given several bivariate data sets, learners make scatter plots using the online SeeIt program to visualize the correlation. To get a more complete picture of the topic, they research their own data set and perform an...
American Statistical Association
What is the Probability of “Pigging Out”
Learners apply their understanding of luck to a probability experiment. They play a game of Pass the Pigs to determine the probability of a specific outcome. Using analysis for their data, pupils declare the measures of center, dot...
American Statistical Association
What Fits?
The bounce of a golf ball changes the result in golf, mini golf—and a great math activity. Scholars graph the height of golf ball bounces before finding a line of best fit. They analyze their own data and the results of others to better...
American Statistical Association
Exploring Geometric Probabilities with Buffon’s Coin Problem
Scholars create and perform experiments attempting to answer Buffon's Coin problem. They discover the relationships between geometry and probability, empirical and theoretical probabilities, and area of a circle and square.
American Statistical Association
Step into Statastics
Class members study the size of classmates' feet and perform a statistical analysis of their data. They solve for central tendencies, quartiles, and spread for the entire group as well as subgroups. They then write a conclusion based on...
American Statistical Association
How Fast Are You?
Quick! Snap up the lesson. Scholars first use an online app to collect data on reaction times by clicking a button when the color of a box changes. They then plot and analyze the data by considering measures of center, measures of...
American Statistical Association
Happy Birthday to . . . Two?
How many people do you need in a room before two likely share the same birthday? Scholars consider this puzzle by analyzing a set of data. They ponder how to divide the data and determine the proper size of a group for this event to...
Museum of the Moving Image
Evaluating Information: Focus on the 2008 Election
Just how true is the information contained in political ads? Determining the veracity of campaign ads from the 2008 presidential race is the focus of a lesson that introduces class members to several fact-checking resources.
Virginia Department of Education
Quadratic Curve of Best Fit
Class members create a table of the number of chords that can be drawn given the number of points on a circle. Pupils analyze the data created, find a function to fit to it, and use the function to make further predictions.