As a ten minute activity, students write their name, sex, birth month, favorite food, sport, color, number of pets on a 3X5 card. Teacher designs a database record and inputs student information from 3X5 cards. See Database Detectives Discover Democracy .
Teacher then makes copies in list form so students can easily input data.
Use Worksheet for Designing Database Record from Database Detectives Discover Democracy . Working individually, students design database record and begin to input provided data. Describing the concept of GIGO - Garbage in Garbage out, teacher models the importance of data accuracy for correct results. To insure maximum searching and sorting experience, teacher starts with the category shared by most students and works down. Understanding they must solve the problem by responding to clues left by the guilty person, they listen to the first clue - a stale piece of pizza.