Visualising data

Visualising Class data

Lesson idea. Students measure various quantities (including but not limited to; arm length, height, hand span) and then analyse this data to look for patters of distribution amongst the class. The spreadsheet allows graphs showing the data to be drawn instantaneously as the data is inputted helping student visualise the variation/distribution of the data within the class

Teaching approach. The lesson offers the opportunity to explore measurement, relationships between measurement, and ways to visualise and summarise this data. The use of ICT⁽ⁱ⁾ allows the teacher to enter data and for pupils to immediately see the impact this has on the pie chart and frequency tables (which are automatically updated). This also allows the teacher to change the 'range' for the frequency counts, and discuss with pupils the impact of this on the pie chart, and whether this is a good representation - encouraging the use of mathematical language^(ta) and scientific method^(ta) throughout. In collecting the data pupils have opportunity for some self-directed group work^(ta) - to measure various lengths as described below - and the teacher could use whole class^(ta) questions^(ta) to explore the strategies taken to conduct this investigation^(ta).

Resource details
Title	Variation of human characteristics
Topic	[[Topics/Graph|Graph]]
Teaching approach	[[Teaching Approaches/Investigation|Investigation]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Questioning|Questioning]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Whole class|Whole class]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Language|Language]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Group work|Group work]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Scientific method|Scientific method]]
Learning Objectives	For students to understand that there is a variation in some human characteristics For students to collect, present, visualise and analyse variation data for themselves and the class
Subject	[[Resources/Science|Science]]
Age of students / grade	[[Resources/Primary|Primary]],  [[Resources/KS1|KS1]]
Additional Resources/material needed	You will need to be able to run spreadsheets.
Useful information	National Curriculum reference: KS1, Sc1 2h, KS1, Sc2 4a.
Files and resources to view and download	Activity Outine: Visualising data/activity Template File:Class Data Set.xls in excel And in ODS format File:Class Data Set.ods Both files will automatically update the pie chart for data. You can add as many children as you like, and you can change the ranges given in the tables (but you cannot add or remove rows - the number of intervals should stay the same). Change the data being visualised by using the 'drop down' menu on the excel sheet.