Fitting a Line to Data - Earnings and Educational Attainment
Activity Description
Students will investigate the relationship between earnings and different levels of educational attainment by creating a scatter plot, adding an approximate line of best fit to the plot, and judging the line’s accuracy.
Suggested Grade Level
8
Approximate Time Required
45 minutes
Learning Objectives
- Students will be able to create a scatter plot relating median annual income to years of education.
- Students will be able to informally fit a line on a scatter plot, derive an approximate equation for that line, and determine how well the line fits the data.
Materials Required
- The student version of this activity, 10 pages
- Rulers
A graphing calculator, graphing software (e.g., Microsoft Excel), or other graphing technology is optional.
Activity Items
The following items are part of this activity. Items, their data sources, and any relevant instructions for viewing
the source data online appear at the end of this teacher version.
- Educational Attainment and Median Annual Income
- Educational Attainment and Median Annual Income by Sex
Teacher Notes
Blooms Taxonomy
Applying
Students will apply their knowledge of creating scatter plots and writing linear equations to determine the association between two quantitative variables.
Subject
Middle School Math
Topics
- Earnings
- Educational attainment
- Line of best fit
- Median annual income
- Scatter plots
Skills Taught
- Creating a scatter plot
- Determining the equation of a line of best fit
- Informally fitting a line to data
Page Last Revised - October 8, 2021