by Liz LaRosa

www.middleschoolscience.com

 click here for a printer friendly version in PDF

Objectives:

• to introduce students to the lab notebook and proper procedures in using the notebook.
• to use statistical data to determine what day of the week and what numerical date most students were born on.
• to learn how to use stem and leaf (click for directions on how to do one) & data analysis table
• to create  a bar graph
• how to use a perpetual calendar

• Perpetual Calendar on Internet or print it out.
• Lab notebook
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Calculator

1. What day of the week (Sun - Sat) were you born on?  Take a guess if you are not sure!
2. What numerical day? (1 - 31)
3. Prediction: What day of the week do you think is the busiest?
4. What numerical day?

Data:  

Table 1: Days of the week (half page)

Figure 1 : Stem and Leaf of Numerical Days for our class : Period ____________ (half page)

 

0
*
10
*
20
*
30

Analysis:  

Table 2 : Summary Data Table For Numerical Days (half page)

 

Figure 2: Bar Graph of Table 1 Totals (all classes) for Each Day of the Week  (full page)

 

45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
	Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat

Results:

1. What day of the week was the busiest? Slowest?
2. Are weekends the busiest time of the week? Explain.
3. What numerical day had the most birthdays in our class?
4. Were your predictions correct? Explain! 
5. How did the mean compare to the median?
6. Look at Table 2, compare your class to the other four clases. Note 3 differences.
7. Why is sample size important when collecting data?

Synthesize the lab into one sentence.  

Copyright 1998