Lesson 17

This lesson is optional. It goes beyond necessary grade-level standards to examine the accuracy of estimates for population characteristics based on many samples. The lesson builds a solid foundation for future grades to build upon, but may be shortened or skipped due to time constraints.

In this lesson, students continue to look at multiple samples from the same population. Examining the structure of dot plots composed of the means from several samples, they see that different samples from the same population can have different means, but that most of these means cluster around the mean of the population (MP7). They consider how far off their estimate might be if they didn’t know the mean of the population but they did know the sample mean. Additionally, students see that larger samples usually produce sample means that are less variable from one another and can more accurately estimate population means.

For the "Reaction Population" activity, prepare a large number line for the class to use as a dot plot of their sample means from the warm-up of this lesson. Provide students with sticky notes to include as dots for this dot plot.