Illuminations: Survey of Hair and Eye Colors

Survey of Hair and Eye Colors

In the following lesson, students participate in activities in which they focus on the uses of numbers. The activities explore how students use numbers in school and every day settings as a way for students and the teacher to get to know each other at the beginning of the school year.

Learning Objectives
 
Students will be able to:
  • collect, organize, and interpret data

Materials
 

Instructional Plan

Background Information

This activity involves data collection and interpretation through the use of a survey. The activity serves as an introduction to statistics.

Preparing the Investigation

Reproduce a copy of the activity sheet "Survey of Hair and Eye Colors" for each student.

Structuring the Investigation

  1. Give the students an opportunity to collect hair-and-eye-color data from twenty students. The actual collection of these data might also conducted as an after-school activity.  

  2. Make sure the students describe the people who participated in their survey. Discuss the importance of describing the source (sample) of the data collected.

  3. As a class, discuss the completed surveys. Ask the students to discuss the most and least common hair and eye colors, as determined by the surveys.

  4. Define a prediction as an attempt to describe the future, usually on the basis of data that have been collected. Discuss this process with the class.

    Explain that each day the TV weather reporter makes a prediction about the weather. Ask for responses to item 3, which asks for a prediction, based on the survey data, of the eye and hair color of the next student to enter the classroom. Discuss predictions with the class.

  5. Determine the number of students with brown hair when five surveys are combined, thus making a 100-student sample. The size of this sample allows immediate decimal representation. Ask the students to represent in fractional form the number of students with brown hair.

  6. On the basis of the 100-student (combined) sample, discuss whether students are more likely to have brown eyes or blond hair. Ask students to give reasons for this likelihood.

Extensions
 
  1. Have students create a bar or picture graph of their results.

  2. Have students represent the results of the combined surveys (100 responses) as decimals and percents, then suggest that this information be multiplied by 360 degrees to determine the size of each section of a circle graph that would represent the colors of hair and one that would represent the colors of eyes.

    Then have the students create circle graphs to display the combined results. Discuss the complete graphs with the class, and then display them.

NCTM Standards and Expectations
 
Data Analysis & Probability 3-5
  1. Collect data using observations, surveys, and experiments.
  2. Propose and justify conclusions and predictions that are based on data and design studies to further investigate the conclusions or predictions.
  3. Predict the probability of outcomes of simple experiments and test the predictions.

References
 

  • Dianne Bankard and Francis (Skip) Fennell.   The Arithmetic Teacher. September, 1991.  pp 26 - 33.

  • Curcio, Frances R.  Developing Graph Comprehension:  Elementary and Middle School Activities. Reston, Va.: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1989.
  
2 periods   

NCTM Resources

Principles and Standards for School Mathematics

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