In the following lessons, students participate in activities in which they focus on the uses of numbers. The activities use the theme of games to develop concepts of measurement and statistics. Students are asked to measure distances using standard and nonstandard units and to record their measurement in various tables. Then they are asked to use descriptive statistics to report the results. This unit was adapted from "Ideas: Games, Measurement, and Statistics", by Helene Silverman, which appeared in The Arithmetic Teacher, April, 1990, pp. 27-32.
Math Content
In "The Celebrated Jumping Frog," students will:
- measure distances jumped in a simulated jumping-frog contest,
- record data, and
- determine median and range of the obtained data.
In "Spinning Tops," students will:
- measure the distance along a curve using indirect measurement,
- record data in chart form,
- compute individual and group medians, and
- analyze data.
Individual Lessons
Lesson 1 - The Celebrated Jumping Frog Using the story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calveras County" by Mark Twain, students simulate a jumping-frog contest and determine the distances "jumped." The students record the distance of individual jumps in centimeters and
determine the total distance jumped (the sum of the three separate jumps) and the official distance (the straight-line distance from the starting line to the end of the frog's third jump). The students compare the range and median of the total distances with those of the official distances of the group. Lesson 2 - Spinning Tops Students measure distances using standard and nonstandard units and record their measurement in various tables. Then they
are asked to use descriptive statistics to report the results. During a top-spinning contest, students measure the distance along a curve using indirect measurement. They record the data for their group in a chart, and compute their individual median and the group median.
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