Lesson 1

The mathematical purpose of this lesson is to create and interpret two-way tables. Two-way tables are used to organize data on two categorical variables. Students encounter the term categorical variable, which is a variable that represents data which can be divided into groups or categories. In statistics, a variable is a characteristic that can take on different values. In eighth grade, students had the opportunity to use two-way tables. The first few tasks incorporate some embedded review. In later lessons, students create and interpret two-way tables showing relative frequencies. When students answer questions about some data, they are making use of the structure of the tables (MP7) to organize and understand the information from descriptions of data. In the Information Gap activity, students must make sense of problems and persevere in solving them (MP1) and attend to the precision of their language (MP6) to ask appropriate questions of their peers.

Print and cut the blackline master for the Info Gap lesson. Make one copy of the blackline master for every 2 students.