Teachers Guide - Correlating Data from Other Countries using TinkerPlots

This lesson is written for a high school (or college) classroom that is completing a unit on
mean/median/mode, or a unit on statistics.
Goal(s): To teach students how to analyze data using TinkerPlots on a computer.
Specific Objective(s): Students will be able to use TinkerPlots to analyze data in a reallife situation. They will achieve this by looking for correlations between various
countries.
Assumed Prior Knowledge: It is assumed that students have basic computer skills, and
have briefly seen TinkerPlots before. If students have not seen TinkerPlots, the teacher
should show them how to use it before completing this activity.
Materials: Attached worksheet, Computer with TinkerPlots Software installed (for each
student), TinkerPlots data file (countries.tp) or excel spreadsheet data file (countries.xls)
Lesson Description/Procedure:
1. Distribute the computers with the TinkerPlots software. Have students boot up
and load TinkerPlots.
2. While students are getting set up, ask the students if they ever compared data
from other countries. If so, ask them to explain what correlations they have seen
before. If not, ask them to explain what trends they think they will find from
country to country. Ask this question before they have completely loaded the
TinkerPlot/excel data (in the next step) so they do not know which statistics they
are going to be working with.
3. Student should download the TinkerPlots data file (countries.tp) from
http://www.mste.uiuc.edu/courses/ci436fa08/folders/dpikler2/TinkerPlots/. This
will be the data file that students will be using to find correlations. If the file will
not open on the computer, have students download the excel spreadsheet and
copy/paste the data into TinkerPlots.
4. Pass out the student activity worksheet (this can be done while completing step 3).
Mention that the data file they are loading displays statistics from other countries
related to their population, land amount, number of children, school life
expectancy, education expenditures, literacy, people below poverty lines,
unemployment rate, life expectancy, and electronic devices. Tell students that
today, they will be exploring some of those statistics, and making comparisons
between several countries. Be sure to share that the statistics can be found at
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html and that
some of the statistics are taken from different years, so none of the correlations
are absolute. Also mention that some of the data might be unavailable, so they are
denoted by blank spaces in the table. At this time, ask student why they think that
some of the data might not be available.

5. On the activity worksheet, students are asked to hypothesize what statistics they
think will correlate (found in part 1: preliminary activity on the worksheet).
Allow the students to write down some things they think will correlate, and if they
will have a positive or negative correlation. When they are finished, have students
share their responses. Write each of their responses on the overhead, and ask the
rest of the class if they agree. Later in the lesson, they will choose one of these
correlations and verify whether it was correct or not.
6. Part 2: Exploration on the guided worksheet allows students to make
comparisons between countries. They will work to find mean and median of data
sets, and will take a look at ratio comparisons between some of the countries.
They will also compare one statistic of a country to another, and see what they
find. Have students read the worksheet and work through it step by step. This part
is meant to be completed individually. Walk around the room to help students that
are having trouble. Students may talk to each other if they need help, but should
not be copying another students work. Note: some students may end up with
different plots, yet they might all be correct.
7. When students are finished with part 2 of the worksheet, have students to come up
to the overhead to present their findings/draw their plots. If possible, bring up
multiple students with different plots [so students can see the data using different
representations].
8. Part 3: Concluding Questions asks students verify their correlation from part 1,
and determine if they were correct or not. It then asks students to choose a country
other than the United States that they think would be the most worthwhile to teach
in [based on the data]. Have students individually answer these questions. At the
end of the period, host a discussion on which countries might be most worthwhile
to teach in and why. It is important to note that some students might rather teach
in a low-income country, because they think they can make a difference, whereas
some will want to teach in a country that values schooling [higher school
expenditure].
Assessment: To assess students informally, make sure that they are paying attention and
contributing to the conversation. It is not uncommon to see students checking their email,
which shows that they are not paying attention. To promote discussion, call on students
that seem to be off task so that perhaps they will start following along. In parts 1 and 3 on
the activity worksheet, opinion-based questions are asked, so students answers will vary.
Part 2 of the worksheet assesses if students can correctly correlate data using TinkerPlots
Software. When grading the activity, keep in mind that some students will have different
representations of plots which are all correct.
Extension: If time allows, students should explore some features of TinkerPlots, and
make more comparisons with the given data. Students will find that some things that
should correlate might not seem to match up, whereas other things that should not
correlate somehow have an unexpected correlation. Students can explore the software for
the remainder of the period if time permits.