Organizing and graphing data connects well with our math standards.  Students are constantly collecting data without even realizing it.  Often students will say “Raise your hand if you like Spiderman” or something similar.  By completing the activities contained in this lesson plan, students can take topics that they are interested in and collect more data to analyze.  The first activity gets students up and moving.  They can immediately see how their peers feel about a topic.  Using that data to create graphs will help students to better connect to the data and become invested in the results.   The lesson could be modified to support English Language Learners and students with disabilities by providing data sets with fewer responses and providing scaffolding for creating their graphs.  Question stems could also be provided to help students write questions about their graphs.  The lesson could be extended by providing students with the opportunity to use a graphing program to create their graphs digitally.

This video is part of the Learn and Grow with WHRO TV series. Watch Shantel Davis teach about creating pictographs.

Students will construct and analyze data from a Skittle bag in bar graphs.

This is an active learning lesson on SOL:2.15 The student will a) collect, organize, and represent data in pictographs and bar graphs