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 Statistics is often a feared math subject. Today, we will introduce a child to gathering data and using it in different statistics.
For 7 days, have a child keep track of the temperature. If you have a thermometer, try to take the reading at the same time each day. You can also get temperature readings online or from a newspaper.
Select 3 different areas of the country or world. For the first 7 days in January of 2007 Vero Beach, Florida; Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Fairbanks, Alaska were the chosen cities.
This was the data.
| DATA |
Temperatures in Fahrenheit Degrees |
| January |
Vero Beach
Florida |
Green Bay
Wisconsin |
Fairbanks
Alaska |
| 1 |
74 |
32 |
-16 |
| 2 |
72 |
33 |
-7 |
| 3 |
77 |
35 |
-10 |
| 4 |
76 |
34 |
-15 |
| 5 |
75 |
35 |
-26 |
| 6 |
75 |
31 |
-29 |
| 7 |
73 |
28 |
-2 |
| Total Degrees |
522 |
228 |
-129 |
Mean or Average
The first statistic to find is the Mean or Average This is found by adding up all 7 temperatures for a location and dividing by 7.
| Vero Beach |
522/7 = 75 degrees |
| Green Bay |
228/7 = 33 degrees |
| Fairbanks |
-129/7 = -18 degrees |
Mode
The next statistic would be the mode, a number that appears most often in a listing of numbers. Place the temperatures in numerical order
| Vero Beach |
72, 73, 74, 75, 75, 76, 77 |
| Green Bay |
28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 35 |
| Fairbanks |
-7, -10, -15, -16, -26, -26 |
We discover that the mode for Vero Beach is 75, Green Bay is 35, and Fairbanks is a COLD -26
Median
The next statistic to find is the median, the middle number of the group of numbers.
| Vero Beach |
72, 73, 74, 75, 75, 76, 77 |
| Green Bay |
28, 31,32, 33, 34, 35, 35 |
| Fairbanks |
-7, -10, -15, -16, -26, -26, -29 |
There are 7 numbers given for the temperatures so the median number would be the fourth number.
Range
The last statistic to find is the range. This is the difference between the lowest number and the highest number.
| |
|
RANGE |
| Vero Beach |
77 - 72 = 5 |
Range 5 |
| Green Bay |
35 - 28 = 7 |
Range 7 |
| Fairbanks |
(-29) - (-7) = 22 |
Range 22 |
Look at all the statistics together and chat how the same temperature numbers can be used in different ways.
| |
Vero Beach |
Green Bay |
Fairbanks |
| Mean |
75 |
33 |
-18 |
| Range |
5 |
7 |
22 |
| Median |
75 |
33 |
-16 |
| Mode |
75 |
35 |
-26 |
 Encourage a child to find other reasons to use these statistics. Perhaps by keeping track of number of jumping jacks done in a week or pieces of mail received for the week.
Use of a calculator helps with the computations which allows a child to focus on coming up with the statistics. |
