In a matter of seconds, the data chosen are communicated to you. Students consider and write about what it might be like to live in a small country with a lot of people or a large country with few people. Students play a variation of Five's a Crowd, in which teams try to list the countries or states in order before seeing the area and population figures. They use what they know about the countries or states to get a sense of how crowded they are. Students create their own game that uses data from the same web site.
Students critique the scoring system for Five's a Crowd .
Then they create a method of scoring that they think would be fairer, one that would better indicate which team's list was closer to the actual order. Students try out their system by applying it to the rounds of the game they've already played and to additional rounds as well. Students present their scoring systems and explain why they think theirs are better than the original. Here are a few questions to ask yourself or discuss with a colleague during and after the lesson. These four handouts can be copied from the following pages.