Middle-school students thrive on the opportunity to discuss topics relevant to them and compare themselves to their peers. This unit allows students to track, organize, and depict personal and peer health information based on their interests. Topics such as time spent using media, hours of sleep, and foods consumed are just a few of the topics that students will use to create graphical depictions.
Students will create tables of values and frequency tables to track health topics of their interests, create a mathematics dictionary for key terms, and participate in numerous class and group discussions. The examination and creation of bar graphs, double bar graphs, pictographs, pie charts, line graphs, stem-and-leaf plots, and scatter plots makes the purpose and use of graphing come alive, while also teaching basic health and graphing skills. Upon completion of class discussions, student discourse, and practice creating graphs, the students will put together a graphing portfolio to document their learning. Finally the students will present their findings to the class and share all that they have learned.
(Developed for Mathematics and Science, grade 5; recommended for Mathematics, grades 5-7)
