Gold Seal Lesson:
Shoes, What Shoes?

Copernicus Education Gateway

Subject:

Mathematics

Grade:

5-8

ICLE Standards:

Statistics: Systematically collect, organize and describe data; construct, read and interpret tables, charts and graphs.

Performance Task:

Companies spend billions of dollars to advertise their products. The sale of athletic shoes is big business in the United States. Shoe companies try to influence buyers, particularly young people, in many different ways. They advertise profusely at sporting events, use superstars in their advertisements, develop colorful ads for major magazines read by young people, etc. Names such as Nike are seen not only on shoes, but also on jackets, sweatshirts, hats, etc. 

What kind of shoes do you and your friends wear? How much do you pay for them? What makes you buy the brand you do? The answers to these questions are important to shoe manufacturers. Your task in this assignment is to generate a study of your peers to find answers to those three questions. To get answers, you are to do the following:

1. Develop a questionnaire that solicits the information you need. You may also want to include questions to get some other information. The questions may be open ended or you may use a checklist. For example, for the question “What makes you buy the brand you do?” you could give choices like “price,” “peer pressure,” “parental pressure,” “worn by favorite athletes,” etc. If your classmates don’t know what they paid for their shoes, you may want to use the cost found in a newspaper flier or go to a store for an approximate cost.

2. Using the questionnaire you develop, survey and collect the data from at least 25 of your classmates.

3. Organize your data and construct appropriate graphs to portray those data.

4. Analyze your data and graphs using statistical terms.

5. List some conclusions, hypotheses and implications that you can make after analyzing your data.

Knowledge / Skills:

Understand the best procedures for statistical data collection, organization, and display. (m5)

Understand the characteristics of measures of central tendency (i.e., mean, median, and mode). (m15)

Rubric:

3 Points = The student works independently in completing the task. He/she demonstrates the ability to collect, organize and analyze data. The student constructs neat and meaningful graphs portraying data collected. He/she uses correct statistical terms to describe the data. The student interprets the data correctly and lists three or more conclusions and inferences from his/her data analysis.

2 Points = The student needs some assistance from others to complete the task. His/her questionnaire is not well constructed, but he/she does obtain the necessary information from it. The data collected are not well organized, making the construction of graphs and the analysis of the data difficult. The student does not use statistical terms to describe his/her data. The student’s graphs are poorly drawn. He/she does little analysis, giving only one or two inferences or conclusions that could be drawn from the data analysis.

1 Point = The student does not complete the task. His/her questionnaire is poorly constructed and he/she fails to get the needed information from at least 25 of his/her classmates. What data are collected are poorly organized. Statistical terms are not used at all to describe the data. Graphs are either omitted or constructed so poorly that they are of little or no value. There is very little analysis of data done. No inferences, implications, or conclusions are made from the data.

Keywords:

GEOMETRY
CENTRAL TENDENCY
STATISTICS
DATA ANALYSIS
DATA COLLECTION
GRAPHS
HYPOTHESIS TESTING
INFERENCE
STATISTICS IN DAILY LIFE
DATA DISPLAY
COMPUTATION
SURVEYS

Grades:

Kg [] - 1 [] - 2 [] - 3 [] - 4 [] - 5 [] - 6 [] - 7 [] - 8 [] - 9 [] - 10 [] - 11 [] - 12 []

ICLE Application:

D

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