Collecting data makes learning real (and fun)

One of the things I do to bring real life to math lessons is to have my mathletes collect data about themselves -- measuring the lengths of ears, smiles, forearms, lower legs, around calves and wrists, upper torso, and so on. It takes one full block (about 90 minutes) to complete the collection process (actually it never really ends), but the data is so very useful right away or for another lesson days away. I know the kids find it much more enjoyable than using the data sets in the textbook. Also, there is the added benefit of becoming accustomed to using metric measurement tools that provide accurate numbers. Today we used the Size of Shoe data (from toe to heel) to construct line plots, frequency distributions, and histograms. Measures of central tendency were also calculated from the data collected by each class.