This set of five student-created measuring and graphing challenges involves student's competitive side and requires them to measure, create tables, and create graphs.

Students compete in challenges like marshmallow basketball, speed drawing, and stand-up comedy, determine the variables in the competitions, and graph the results.

This activity packet includes:
- 4 student- created challenges with lesson plans and handouts
- 1 open-ended challenge handout for your students
- teacher grading rubric

These activities take graphing beyond just plotting points. Through competition, Socratic discussion and inquiry-based learning, graphing becomes a necessary and useful tool.

*When using one of these activities with a group of students before a lesson on graphing, they did much better during the following lesson than the kids who weren't exposed to graphing for a competitive competition. Pretty cool!

CCSS COVERED:

4th:
Represent and interpret data.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.4.MD.B.4
Make a line plot to display a data set of measurements in fractions of a unit (1/2, 1/4, 1/8). Solve problems involving addition and subtraction of fractions by using information presented in line plots. For example, from a line plot find and interpret the difference in length between the longest and shortest specimens in an insect collection.

5th:
Graph points on the coordinate plane to solve real-world and mathematical problems.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.G.A.1
Use a pair of perpendicular number lines, called axes, to define a coordinate system, with the intersection of the lines (the origin) arranged to coincide with the 0 on each line and a given point in the plane located by using an ordered pair of numbers, called its coordinates. Understand that the first number indicates how far to travel from the origin in the direction of one axis, and the second number indicates how far to travel in the direction of the second axis, with the convention that the names of the two axes and the coordinates correspond (e.g., x-axis and x-coordinate, y-axis and y-coordinate).
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.G.A.2
Represent real world and mathematical problems by graphing points in the first quadrant of the coordinate plane, and interpret coordinate values of points in the context of the situation.

6th:
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.6.SP.B.4
Display numerical data in plots on a number line, including dot plots, histograms, and box plots.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.6.SP.B.5
Summarize numerical data sets in relation to their context, such as by:
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.6.SP.B.5.A
Reporting the number of observations.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.6.SP.B.5.B
Describing the nature of the attribute under investigation, including how it was measured and its units of measurement.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.6.SP.B.5.C
Giving quantitative measures of center (median and/or mean) and variability (interquartile range and/or mean absolute deviation), as well as describing any overall pattern and any striking deviations from the overall pattern with reference to the context in which the data were gathered.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.6.SP.B.5.D
Relating the choice of measures of center and variability to the shape of the data distribution and the context in which the data were gathered.