• Open the spreadsheet to be seen by the entire class, or have individual students open it at their own computers.
• Have the students enter data for one, two or three of the groups, with up to 20 items for each.
• Measure of the data will be displayed at the top of the spreadsheet including mean, median, mode, quartiles, and range.
• Now have the students compare the measures of data analysis at the top to draw conclusions about their data.
• Some questions they may ask include:
  • Is some data skewed? Clustered? Spread out?
  • What effect does an outlier have on the measures?
  • What do the measures tell you about the different groups?
• This is a good way to understand the different measures of central tendency and spread, and how to use them to compare different sets of data.

Standards (Ohio Academic Content Standards):

• Math - Grade 4 - Data Analysis and Probability
  • #7 - Identify the median of a set of data and describe what it indicates about the data.
  • #8 - Use range, median and mode to make comparisons among related sets of data.
• Math - Grade 5 - Data Analysis and Probability
  • #6 - Determine and use the range, mean, median and mode, and explain what each does and does not indicate about the set of data.
• Math - Grade 6 - Data Analysis and Probability
  • #4 - Understand the different information provided by measures of center (mean, mode and median) and measures of spread (range).
• Math - Grade 7 - Data Analysis and Probability
  • #3 - Analyze a set of data by using and comparing combinations of measures of center (mean, mode, median) and measures of spread (range, quartile, interquartile range), and describe how the inclusion or exclusion of outliers affects those measures.
• Math - Grade 8 - Data Analysis and Probability
• 4 - Compare two sets of data using measures of center (mean, mode, median) and measures of spread (range, quartiles, interquartile range, percentiles).