Most students in grades 7 and 8 have major physical growth activity. Students can continue to maintain the statistics related to their body that they began to collect in the fifth and sixth grades. They should continually update what the average person in the grade would look like in terms of this data. In the spring, the social studies teacher and the mathematics teacher plan a unit on the school board elections. Students plan their survey, how they will choose the sample, how best to gather the data, and how best to report the information to the class.
Students study the sneakers worn by students in the school.
They form into a human histogram based upon their brand of sneakers. The data is recorded and a discussion is encouraged about the distribution of sneakers throughout the school. Students discuss in their journals which of the measures of central tendency a sporting goods store would use in determining which brands to stock and in what proportion. The students gather prices for a variety of brands and styles and enter the data into a spreadsheet. They respond in their journal as to whether and why the mean, median, or mode would be most useful to discuss sneaker prices.