Interpreting Box Plots - Data On Sporting Goods By State
Activity Description
Students will review County Business Patterns data on the number of sporting goods stores in the United States that sold items such as bicycles and camping equipment in 2021. They will use this data to find the 5-number summaries and create box plots, using techniques such as forming a human number line and folding data sets on strips of paper.
Suggested Grade Level
6
Approximate Time Required
60 minutes
Learning Objectives
- Students will be able to create and interpret a box plot of census data.
- Students will be able to display numerical data on a number line.
- Students will be able to identify measures of center (median) and variability (interquartile range).
Materials Required
- The student version of this activity, 5 pages.
- A printed version of the data cards in the teacher version of the activity
- Masking tape
- Scissors for at least each pair of students
Activity Items
The following item is part of this activity. The item, its data source, and instructions for viewing the source data online appear at the end of this teacher version.
- Group A and Group B Data Strips
Teacher Notes
Blooms Taxonomy
Understanding
Students will understand how to find the values in a 5-number summary and apply this understanding to create and analyze box plots.
Subject
Middle School Math
Topics
- 5-number summary
- Box plots
- Interquartile range
- Median
- Outliers
- Quartiles
Skills Taught
- Analyzing data
- Calculating a 5-number summary
- Creating a box plot
Page Last Revised - October 31, 2023