Data Detectives
How fast are our reflexes? Which graph is telling the truth? Do taller people really have bigger hands? Three lessons where students collect their own measurements and find out what numbers can and can't tell you.
Or try any 3 lessons free with an account.
3 lessons in this unit
Lesson 1 · 50–60 minHow fast are our reaction times?Partners drop a ruler and catch it, five times with their writing hand and five times with the other hand. Students find the mean, median and range of their own catches and the class's, then decide whether our writing hand really is quicker.
Lesson 2 · 50–60 minWhich graph tells the truth?Teams take the class's reaction-time results and draw two bar graphs of exactly the same numbers: one honest, one built to exaggerate. Then they hunt for the same tricks in a set of sneaky graphs and fix an advertisement's chart.
Lesson 3 · 50–60 minDo taller people have bigger hands?Students measure height and hand span, plot every person as one point on a scatter plot, and draw a trend line by eye. They decide whether taller people tend to have bigger hands, and learn the difference between a trend and a rule.
Students become the data source. They test their own reaction times by catching a falling ruler, sum up the class with the mean, median and range, then use the same numbers to build an honest graph and a sneaky one. In the last lesson they measure height and hand span, plot every person as a point and look for a trend.
By the end of the unit, students can describe a data set with a typical value and a spread, spot the tricks that make a graph mislead, and explain the difference between a trend and a rule. All they need is rulers, tape measures, grid paper and a calculator.