Traditional elementary statistics instruction for non-majors has focused on computation. Rarely have students had an opportunity to interact with real data sets or to use questioning to drive data analysis, common activities among professional statisticians. Inclusion of data gathering and analysis into whole class and small group activities acknowledges that students learn in different ways. This paper discusses seven data gathering problems that have been successful in facilitating student understanding of elementary statistical concepts common to introductory courses. The problems are: (1) "Breaking the barriers to success with surveys"; (2) "Which exam should Prof. Dee Viation scale?"; (3) "Probability distributions from Mars - M&M, that is"; (4) "Making cents of the Central Limit Theorem"; (5) "Descriptive statistical summaries - what about the data?"; (6) "Body correlation"; and (7) "Telephones: a necessary expense, but is the expense necessary?" (MKR)