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                Activities
                    
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                        Standards
                    
                        About

                  
                
                    Activities Overview
                        
                            Math
                        
                            History/Social Studies
                        
                            Geography
                        
                            Sociology
                        
                            English
                        
                            Home and Distance Learning Activities
                        
                            Grades K - 2
                        
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                    Apportionment Resources
                        
                            Constitution Day
                        
                            Data Access Tools
                        
                            Fun Facts
                        
                            Games
                        
                            Historical Documents and Images
                        
                            Kahoot! Games
                        
                            Learn About the Decennial Census
                        
                            Maps
                        
                            Monthly Highlights
                        
                            Videos
                        
                            Visualizations
                        
                            Warm-Up Activities
                
                    Overview
                        
                            Math
                        
                            History
                        
                            Geography
                        
                            Sociology
                        
                            English
                
                    About Us
                        
                            Program Benefits
                        
                            Census 101 for Students
                        
                            Teacher's Guide to Tools
                        
                            Newsroom
                        
                            Partner with SIS
                        
                            Contact Us
 
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            Fitting a Line to Data - Earnings and Educational Attainment
 Fitting a Line to Data - Earnings and Educational Attainment
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 Fitting a Line to Data - Earnings and Educational Attainment
 Activity Description
 mm14_160

		Students will investigate the relationship between earnings and different levels of educational attainment by creating a scatter plot, adding an approximate line of best fit to the plot, and judging the line’s accuracy.
 Suggested Grade Level
 8
 Approximate Time Required
 45 minutes
 Learning Objectives
 Students will be able to create a scatter plot relating median annual income to years of education.
Students will be able to informally fit a line on a scatter plot, derive an approximate equation for that line, and determine how well the line fits the data.
 Materials Required
 The student version of this activity, 10 pages
RulersA graphing calculator, graphing software (e.g., Microsoft Excel), or other graphing technology is optional.
 Activity Items
 The following items are part of this activity. Items, their data sources, and any relevant instructions for viewing
the source data online appear at the end of this teacher version.
Educational Attainment and Median Annual Income
Educational Attainment and Median Annual Income by Sex
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 Teacher Notes Blooms Taxonomy 
 Students will **apply**their knowledge of **creating**scatter plots and writing linear equations to determine the association between two quantitative variables.
 Subject Middle School Math
 Topics Earnings
Educational attainment
Line of best fit
Median annual income
Scatter plots
 Skills Taught Creating a scatter plot
Determining the equation of a line of best fit
Informally fitting a line to data
 
 
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