Every day, students collect, organize, and analyze data to make decisions. In this data-driven world, people need to assess how much trust they can place in summary statistics. The results of every survey and the safety of every drug that undergoes a clinical trial depend on the correct application of appropriate statistics. Recognizing the…

Linear functions are an important part of the middle school mathematics curriculum. Students in the middle grades gain fluency by working with linear functions in a variety of representations (NCTM 2001). Presented in this article is an activity that was used with five eighth-grade classes at three different schools. The activity contains 15 cards…

"Bars, Lines, & Pies" is a dynamic math program designed to build graphing skills in students, while also showing them the relevance of math in their lives. Developed by The Actuarial Foundation along with Scholastic, the graphing lessons and activities involve engaging, real-world examples about the environment and recycling. In these lessons,…

"Shake, Rattle, & Roll" is a new program developed by The Actuarial Foundation with Scholastic, provides dynamic real-world math content designed to build student skills while showing students the relevance of math to understanding their world and planning for their future. Math skills are increasingly important for students. According to the U.S.…

Since the dawn of civilization, pictorial representations and symbols have been used to communicate simple statistics. Efficient and effective, they are still used today in the form of pictures and graphs to record and present data. Who can tie their shoes? How many calories are in your favorite food? Make data and graphs relevant and interesting…

Describes an activity on data management and statistics in which students were asked to think of a topic and collect information on it to analyze and represent in graphs. (ASK)

Recounts 6th grade students' investigations of combinations and graph theory that arose from a claim made on a Steak'n Shake menu. (YDS)

Presents an activity in which students learn how to label graphs in order to make them meaningful. (ASK)

Presents an activity which focuses on the graph of sine and cosine functions and other properties that can easily be inferred from the graph. (ASK)

Explores an unexpected connection between a function, its inverse, and the arithmetic mean, algebraically and graphically. (MM)

Introduces the concept of function using graphs or pictorial representations of functions. Presents four activities for grade levels 8-14 that use the natural progression from qualitative graphs to quantitative graphs to tables to equations for introducing the theme of distance from an object as a function of time. (Author/NB)

Provides activities that support students as they develop their intuitive notions of graphs. Activities help students describe the relationships expressed in the graphs and make generalizations about inferences on the basis of the visual image. (ASK)

Presents a sequence of activities for teaching concepts of temperature and change of temperature, and linking these concepts to graphical thinking. Offers measurement and graphing activities that use temperature as a common theme for many grade levels. (ASK)

Students have difficulty associating equations of vertical and horizontal lines with their respective graphs. Presents an activity using a TI-82 graphing calculator to eliminate this confusion and to strengthen students' understanding. (ASK)

Presents three activities on quadratic relationships, their graphs, and their formulas. (ASK)