American Statistical Association
How Long is 30 Seconds?
Is time on your side? Pupils come up with an experiment to test whether their classmates can guess how long it takes for 30 seconds to elapse. They divide the class data into two groups, create box-and-whisker plots, and analyze the...
Statistics Education Web
How High Can You Jump?
How high can your pupils jump? Learners design an experiment to answer this question. After collecting the data, they create box plots and scatter plots to analyze the data. To finish the lesson, they use the data to draw conclusions.
NOAA
Tracking a Drifter
Be shore to use this drifter resource. The third installment of a five-part series has learners using the NOAA's Adopt-a-Drifter website to track to movement of a drifter (buoy) in the ocean. Graphing the collected data on a map allows...
NOAA
I Didn’t Do It…Did I?: Make Your Own Greenhouse Effect
How do greenhouse gases affect the climate on Earth? Pupils explore the concept by first building their own apparatuses to model the greenhouse effect. Then, they record data to measure temperature change and determine...
American Statistical Association
Bear Hugs
Scholars research arm span to determine who gives the best bear hugs. They use data from a national study to find the standard statistics for arm span. It includes mean, median, quartiles, spread, standard deviation, and more.
Teach Engineering
Preconditioning Balloons: Viscoelastic Biomedical Experiments
What does stretching a balloon have to do with equilibrium? Groups explore preconditioning by stretching a balloon to a point of equilibrium. They then measure the amount of force required to stretch the balloon to the same point several...
NOAA
The Oceanographic Yo-yo
How does chemistry help deep-sea explorers? Part four of a five-part series of lessons from aboard the Okeanos Explorer introduces middle school scientists to technologies used in ocean exploration. Groups work together to analyze data...
Discovery Education
How's the Weather?
Young meteorologists explore different aspects of the weather while learning about measurement devices. They build instruments and then set up a weather station outside and measure temperature, humidity, air pressure, wind speed, and...
West Contra Costa Unified School District
Writing Exponential Functions Based on Data
Give your class a concrete example of exponential growth and decay using this hands-on activity. These Algebra II lessons allow for the exploration of exponential growth and decay models, as well as the discovery of the patterns of...
Curated OER
Using Vegetation, Precipitation, and Surface Temperature to Study Climate Zones
Using NASA's Live Access Server, earth scientists compare the temperature, precipitation, and normalized difference vegetation index for four different locations. They use the data to identify the climate zone of each location using...
University of Connecticut
Building Your Own Biosphere
On September 26, 1991, four women and four men entered the scientific experiment, Biosphere 2; the doors were sealed for two years in order to study the interactions of a biosphere. In the activity, scholars explore biospheres by...
Curated OER
Create a Public Opinion Survey: The Middle East in the News
Though the discrete content here is a pair of New York Times articles about a 1998 military strike on Iraq and the coincident impeachment by the House of Representatives of then-President Clinton, this detailed plan for creating,...
Teach Engineering
Density Column Lab - Part 1
Mass and density — aren't they the same thing? This activity has groups use balance beams and water displacement to measure several objects. The pupils use the measurements to calculate the density of the objects.
Curated OER
Less and More Scavenger Hunt
Send your scholars on a measuring scavenger hunt with this interactive activity! They use a graphic organizer to record their findings as they search for items which are less than, more than, or just about one inch long. For each, they...
Curated OER
Oral History
Use oral history as a way to help learners develop communication skills. They interview a trusted adult about their life as a young person, challenges they overcame, and what they are proud of. Learners are then interviewed themselves in...
Curated OER
Building Brilliant Bar Graphs
Everything you need for a mini-unit on bar graphs is included in this lesson plan! It outlines three lessons and includes worksheets. Learners taste pretzels, shoot baskets (switching off hands), and grab candy, graphing results...
Creative Chemistry
Simple Calorimetry to Find the Enthalpy of Combustion of Alcohols
Accomplished chemistry learners set up a calorimeter and measured the energy released by various alcohols: methanol, ethanol, and either propanol or butanol. Lab masters will first need to design their tables for recording data. Consider...
Curated OER
A Tall Story
High schoolers investigate the growth rate of a man named Bob Wadlow. In this growth rate of a man lesson, students determine if the growth rate of this particular man was normal or abnormal. High schoolers bring in data of...
Curated OER
The Effect of Acid Rain on Limestone
Pupils investigate the pH of rain water in this earth science lesson. They collect rain water from their area and explore the pH when lime stone is added, then they will use the data collected to conjecture as to the effect of acid rain...
Curated OER
Data Collection and Presentation
Students concentrate on discrete quantiative data. They are shown that the vertical line diagram as a more appropriate way to present discrete quantiative data then bar charts. Students work as a group to help with the interpretation...
Curated OER
Activity Plan 5-6: What's In a Name?
Students use family names to gather and analyze data. In this counting instructional activity, students use graph paper to help organize their data and then, in a staircase fashion, organize the names from longest to shortest so they...
Curated OER
"Lucky Charms": Interpreting Data and Making Predictions
Seventh graders determine if a "lucky charm" will increase their chances of winning a game. Students calculate the experimental probability of each player in a game. They observe and collect data from each activity. Students compare the...
Curated OER
Data Lesson Vital Information
Students prepare and collect data and use excel and create a graph. They collect data about the number of pattern blocks that are put on tables. Students then record that data in Excel.