Several schools have extended this lab by investigating the relationship between arm span and height in their entire school. They made a large graph and posted it on a wall in a main hallway of the school. Each student and teacher in the school plotted his or her own arm span and height data on the graph using a small sticker. Figure 8 is a sample school graph which was completed by the students and teachers in a Chicago elementary school. The teacher included a professional basketball player's data on the graph as well as her 1-year-old nephew's data. If it is inappropriate for everyone in the school to participate, invite a first-grade classroom, an eighth-grade classroom, and several teachers to graph their data.
If you have a spreadsheet software package available, your class can use it throughout the year to enter data, calculate averages, and graph the data. See sample graph in Figure 8. We recommend that you introduce the features of the spreadsheet one at a time. For this lab, students can enter the arm span and height data in a spreadsheet and use the computer to find the median.
