6th Grade Statistics Project - Before You Start
To assess student understanding of data and statistics, I rely heavily on a 6th grade statistics project. For my class, this unit often falls toward the end of the year and students grow weary of the day to day tasks of school. Therefore, I like to mix it up when it comes to the instruction through a statistics fitness competition. You can read more about the statistics lesson ideas on this blog post. Furthermore, to close the unit, I provide the students the opportunity to show their understanding through a 6th grade statistics project. If you are looking for an easy way to implement the project on your own, along with the 6th grade statistics project rubric, you can check it out in my TpT store. If you are interested in creating your own project, feel free to steal all the ideas found in this blog post.
6th Grade Statistics Project - Overview
For this 6th grade statistics project, students create a fun and silly game for other students to play. While creating and playing the games, data collection is the core of the creation and play. The students use a statistical question as the driving force for the project. For example, “How many skittles can the students in Block Three pick up and place in a cup while utilizing pencils as chopsticks?” was an example of a statistical question my students created. Finally, after collecting the data, finding the measures of center and variability and graphing, the students analyze what the data tells them about the difficulty of their game. They also analyze which measure of center and graph best describes their data.
I often use the show “Minute To Win It” to provide the students with inspiration for their games. The students can normally come up with awesome and easy to set-up ideas on their own; however, if this is not the case, they can be easily prompted by pointing out some common classroom materials that may lend themselves to a silly game. The connection to “Minute To Win It” reminds students to keep games simple and short.
Set-up and Materials
Set-up is very minimal; however, depending on the materials required for the students’ games, gathering materials may be required. Students should create games that require materials that can be easily gathered within the classroom. My students often ask to use materials from the cafeteria as well. Below is a list of materials I keep in my classroom for the project.
6th Grade Statistics Project - Daily Breakdown
Now that the set-up is taken care of, let’s take a look at what each day of the project looks like in the classroom. The information below breaks down what happens each day in my classroom. Please note, “day one” takes place two or three days after the project has been introduced. I usually provide students with a few days to let the project marinate while they begin to brainstorm, decide who they would like to work with and begin to think about possible materials needed.
Day One (80 Minute Block)
Students choose groups and begin to brainstorm ideas about the game. The main focus of this day is on the creative process and learning to work as a group to come to a conclusion as to which game will work best for the project. Often students are very connected to their own ideas and this activity provides students the opportunity to work on some soft skills and learn to respect others opinions. In fact, I witnessed one of the groups in my class relying on a secret ballot vote to determine which game to play. When provided the appropriate opportunities, my students impress me with their problem solving skills.
During this creative process, many groups create rough sketches of the game, borrow and gather materials to test their ideas, draft diagrams and start to determine how to create the same game experience for all students. Often students measure distances through trial and error and come up with the idea to use tape to mark where different materials will be set up.
In addition to creating the game, students make rough drafts of data charts, ask for contestants to play their game and draft precise directions and rules of their game and how it is to be played.
Math Amidst the Madness
Amongst the mass chaos, some extremely rich discussions take place. One rich discussion I often have with students is the difference between creating a game that collects quantitative data rather than assigning point values. Similarly, students consider what type of data they can collect; time, number of items collected, questions answered correctly, etc. I take this opportunity as a teachable moment to discuss with small groups the value in seeking and creating games that are data driven.
Day Two (80 Minute Block)
This day can get slightly hectic…okay, extremely chaotic. This is the day the students love. The day they think they are getting away with a whole math period with no math. However, little do they know, this is the underlying base of the entire project. Furthermore, some students learn more about data on this day than all the other days combined. I’ll get to that in a minute, but first, let’s talk about what happens on day two.
To start, we use the first ten minutes to set up the games. Next, each group states the statistical question they are trying to answer with their game. Each group also reads the rules and directions for their game. Then the fun begins. For the remainder of the class, the students collect data on their games. Since I have done this activity for years, I am very comfortable with running all the games at the same time and having students move about to collect data. Each student in the group has a role such as time keeper, set-up, data collector, etc. When students leave to play other games, the other group members are responsible for filling in any missing jobs to ensure the game can still run smoothly.
Are Students Playing or Learning?
The students that end up learning the most on this day are those who have to make adaptations to their game. In depth discussions about flaws in a game at times lead to unusable data. For example, I usually have at least one group with issues of the game being too difficult that was not realized when testing the game. The students are disappointed in the outcome and brainstorm ideas to alter the game to achieve different results.
Furthermore, other groups have very early recognition and discussions about the mode and outliers. In fact, they often start discussing the other measures of center and begin calculating before they are even required to do so. Seeing the students solve the math just to compare scores from their activity is extremely gratifying.
Day Three (80 Minute Block)
Day three quiets down significantly. The students begin to work independently on the mathematics. After solving, the students get back into their groups to compare answers and discuss. Day three is another great day to cash in on some exceptional teachable moments. Students can be overheard communicating information that would not normally be discussed in a “textbook” setting. Normal data sets from the textbook or other resources are “perfect”. What I mean by this is, the data set works out exactly as you expect it to. There are usually one or two modes, a whole number mean and the quartiles differ from the minimum and maximum.
In contrast, I’ve had students with six modes in their data set. Additionally, one of my groups minimum and lower quartile were both the same. Naturally, they discussed what to do and came to me for guidance. These questions are not often pondered, let alone asked during a normal “textbook” setting. Collecting actual data allows for these discussions to happen. For more ideas on how to collect real data and get students interested in a statistics unit, head over to read how I use exercise activities to excite and engage students.
Day Four (80 Minute Block)
Following day three, students continue calculating the measures of center and variability, create line plots, box plots and histograms. Once the rough drafts have been created, the students draft the final graphs on the computer and complete a summary. The summaries must include which measure of center the group determines best represents their data set. Also, they must choose a graph that most accurately and easily depicts their data. This is another opportunity for students to truly understand the statistics and how it helps us interpret a data set.
6th Grade Statistics Project - Conclusion
In conclusion, using a 6th grade statistics project to assess student understanding not only allows students to show their expertise, but often further develops their overall knowledge of statistics. During the project, students are engaged in learning, are provided an opportunity to be creative and learn to work together and respect differing opinions. All of this is accomplished while students are also required to think in depth about statistics and students often ask great questions about statistics which wouldn’t normally be inquired, or even considered. To make implementing this project idea even easier, grab the ready to go student directions, rubric and more at my store.
If you like this project idea, you may be interested in reading my blog post where I provide a list of Fifteen of My Favorite Project Ideas for 6th Grade Math.
If you are interested in using projects in your math class, be sure to check out my free guide below.
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