Collect Pet Data

Direct students to the Pet Data Table on the Pet Lab pages in the Student Activity Book and to the Pet Data Table you prepared and have displayed.

As students name the kinds of pets, record them in the first column of the data table. Be sure to include the option of "No Pets." Ask students to write this information in the first column of their data table as well.

Ask students to add this title to this column of the data table. Include the variable "T" or "K."

Next distribute a 3-inch square self-adhesive note or similarly-sized piece of construction paper to each student. Ask each student to draw a picture of his or her pet on a note. If some students have more than one kind of pet, they will need a note for each kind. Note that the vertical axis on the graph will read Number of Students, not Number of Pets. Therefore, a student with two cats is counted as one student with pet cats, not as two cats. On the other hand, a student who has a bird, two cats, and a turtle will require three notes and will be counted three times: as a student with a bird, a student with cats, and a student with a turtle.

Poll students by asking what type of pet they have. Make tallies on the data table you have displayed. Allow students to help one another translate the tallies into numbers and record the data on their own data tables. See Figure 2.

Show students how to add this title to their table. Include the variable "N."