Direct students back to the opening vignette on the Represent Data with Line Plots pages in the Student Guide. After reviewing the context of the data collection for the line plot, ask them to again discuss how a line plot is similar to and different from a bar graph with their partner.
Ask several students to share their observations before asking:
- If Mr. Moreno's class were to collect data about pets in the entire school, would it make sense to organize the data in a line plot or in a bar graph? Explain your thinking. (Possible response: It would make more sense to use a bar graph because there would be a lot more data points to represent. It would be difficult and time consuming to make all of the Xs and it would be more likely that you would make a mistake or miss a data point. A bar graph would be easier because you can keep track of the number of data points you are representing using the vertical axis. You can also scale the vertical axis.)
- When do you think line plots would be most useful? (Possible response: when you only have a few data points to represent and you want to get a quick view at the way the data looks)
Ask students to generate some additional survey questions that could be used to collect information about their class. These questions can be collected and placed in a learning center for students to use to collect data that could be represented in a line plot. After the line plots are generated they can be placed on a display giving information about the class.
