Statistics Unit:

Outcomes:
-

Students will understand the role statistics can play in hypothesis testing
Students will be able to calculate the range and the different central
tendency statistics (Mode, Median, Mean) for a data set. Also students will
be able to explain how they are affected by outliers in a data set.
Students will be able to graphically represent data through bar and pie
charts and be able to explain the difference between absolute and relative
comparisons.
Students will recognize the need to collect data in an organized and
consistent manner to facilitate analysis.

Day 1:
I will introduce the topic of statistics by asking the class what month do they think
the class has the most/least birthdays and inviting them to come up with a
hypothesis (ex, February has the least birthdays because it has the least days).
Once hypothesise have been made, I will ask the class how we can find out the
answer, leading to having the students write down their month of birth onto the
front whiteboard. I will draw attention that the data set is not well organized, which
makes it difficult to find the answer and then organize the data by month. At this
point, it will be possible to determine the answer to the original hypothesis. At this
point I will discuss what the mode of a data set is and add additional birthdays to
explore the possibility of multiple modes.
At this point I will suggest that it would be useful to depict this information
graphically. I will build a bar and pie chart from the data, drawing attention to how
to properly label both and that pie charts show only relative values as opposed to
absolute values in bar charts. I will then extend the idea of pie charts to consider
their recent power source project and build a pie chart of how much electricity is
generated by the different sources they considered for Alberta.
At the end of class, students will be tasked to time how long it takes for them to get
home that afternoon which will then be used as the data for the next lesson.
Day 2:
At the beginning of the lesson, students will write their travel times on the front
white board which I will then organize as before. The lesson will then look at the
mean, median, mode and range of the example data set. A simpler data set will be
first used to look at the mean to establish a rational that can then be applied to
other data sets.

Ex: Alice has 2 apples, Bob has 2 apples and Eve has 5 apples. How many apples
would they each have if they share their apples equally?
Median will be explored in the travel time data set, with an additional data point
added to look at how median is determined when the number of data points is odd
or even.
The influence of outliers will also be introduced and their influence on the
established descriptive statistics investigated. If the travel time data set contains no
outliers, I will fabricate a travel time for how long it takes me to get home in order
to introduce one.
The concept of binning data will also be introduced to facilitate the creation of pie
and bar charts to visually represent the data sets.
Project:
Students will be tasked to form a hypothesis that can be investigated statistically
and build a survey, calculate descriptive statistics and then create a poster to
present to the class complete with graphical representations in the form of pie
and/or bar charts. I will provide a list of possible topics in order to encourage
breadth and demonstrate to students the vast range of possibilities that statistics
can be applied to.
Suggested topics:
Where is the cheapest place to buy milk?
How fast can a Grade 7 run?
How big are the families of a Grade 7 student?
How long has an average Grade 7 student been in Canada?
How fast is a grade 7s reaction time?