DATE: Spring, 2001
COURSE TITLE: Fundamentals of Math - Grade 9
AUTHOR:
Ernest Pigeon
TOPIC: Exploring Line Graphs
PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVE:
You will interpret and construct line graphs to your teacher's satisfaction. You will learn how to use line graphs as a means to represent data.
The performance objectives are aligned with the MCAS standards as follow
| Standard:
|
Description: |
| 10.D.1
|
Select, create, and interpret an appropriate graphical representation for a set of data and use appropriate statistics to communicate information. Use these notions to compare different sets of data. |
ACTIVITY #1:
LINE GRAPHS display how thing changes over a period of time. Line graphs are useful in showing change and indicating trends. A line graph has a horizontal axis (line drawn from left to right) and a vertical axis (line drawn up and down). On a line graph the horizontal axis usually shows a period of time while the vertical axis shows the amount of change. Line graphs do not have to start at zero. Some do, but others start at a number closest to the lowest number recorded. For example, if you were recording daily summer temperatures which are generally in the 80's and 90's the first number on the vertical axis of your line graph might be 75 NOT 0 !
EXAMPLE:
Develop a line graph showing the number of students arriving late for school in certain months. Use the following information to come up with your graph.
MONTH # of Students arriving late
September 6
October 9
November 13
December 20
January 21
February 23
March 15
April 13
May 7
June 4
List the periods of time (Months) on the horizontal axis and the amount of late students on the vertical axis.
You can set the vertical axis in intervals of one or two. The range will go from 0 to 23 or 24 depending on the intervals you established. Use the graph you made to answer the following questions.
1. How many students were late during the month of November?
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2. How many students were late during the month of June?
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3. Which two months showed the biggest increase in lateness?
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4. Which two months had the same number of students late?
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5. What is the difference between the month with the most number of students late and the month with the least number of students late?
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Open-ended Question Describe in paragraph form how you feel the data accurately or inaccurately describes a real interpretation of school absenteeism at your school. Also described why or why not the absents rate would follow this pattern. Use specific examples if possible.
ACTVITY #2:
http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/Algebra/rightleft.html
ACTIVITY #3:
COOPERATIVE LEARNING PROJECT
Break students into groups of 4. Have each student pick a city and construct line graphs representing the monthly temperature for that city from the data listed below. These four line graphs should be constructed on a sheet of graph paper. Use a different color marker for each of the four cities. On the graph be sure to indicate what color represents what city.
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.
Los Angeles 55 56 58 59 62 66 70 73 68 65 61 57
New Orleans 54 57 63 70 75 81 82 82 79 71 62 56
Chicago 24 26 35 47 58 67 72 72 65 54 40 29
New York 31 31 38 49 61 70 75 77 67 56 44 35