Visualize numerical data | Students Compute like Computers to Solve Real Problems (Lesson 2 of 7) | K-2

Instructions

Materials Needed:

1. Students will each require a computer
2. Interactive Google Slides Activity (google slides 3 and 4)
3. Teacher review of how to make interactive activities in google slides
4. Students will need a separate mini-lesson on how to manipulate objects in google slides.
5. You can increase the rigor in this lesson by using larger numbers with more place values or add more categories of marble colors.

Step 2: Define key terms.

1. Numerical – made up of numbers only
2. Situation – an event
3. Data – information that is usually made up of numbers only (numerical)
4. Bar Graph – a picture that represents our numerical data
5. Visualize – turn numerical information into a bar graph!

Step 2: Own It – “What step did we take before we knew how many red marbles students wanted?

• Show students the exemplar google slide (google slide #2)
• Think-Pair-Share:  What steps did we take before we knew how many red marbles students wanted?
  • Scaffold:
    • push students to focus on the “ORGANIZE” Section
  • Exemplar answer:
    • I moved the red marbles together in a line
    • Then I counted the red marbles
  • Response:
    • After we count, we saw the red marble line was LONGER than the others.
    • Keep that in mind!

Step 3: Introduce the Essential Question that students will work to answer over the course of the week’s lessons split into 5 parts.

• Say: “This week, scholars, we have asked the question, ‘What steps do computers take to analyze numerical information and find problems that we can solve?’”
• Say: “Today, we will learn the second step computers take: visualize numerical information about a situation by turning the information into a bar graph.”

Step 4: Visualize data using educational technology website for simple bar graphs

• Say: “Now that we have organized our data, we have to turn it into a bar graph.  That helps computers understand the data better!”
• Model for students how to grab colored rectangles in google slide #3 and change their size
• Have students independently:
  • drag and manipulate the rectangles to match the data from the organizing activity (look at exemplar on google slide #2)

Step 5: Provide students with sample organized data and allow them independently practice time visualizing their data.

• [Students should be stopping at the point before they visually represent their organized data]
• Make more copies of google slide #3 and change it to different colors and quantities of color for more practice for students

Step 6: Stamp and summarize what students did today in class

• Say: “Today we introduced the question, ‘What steps do computers take to analyze numerical information and find problems that we can solve?’
  • We took the second step that computers take by
    • 3) making a bar graph out of our data.
• Say: “Tomorrow, we will take the next step!  Interpreting our data by reading our bar graph!”