Temperature Box and Whisker Project

One of the topics that I teach my seventh graders is how to display data in a box-and-whisker plot and how to read them.  I have been searching for a good project to do with box-and-whisker plots for basically the last five years, and this year I came across an awesome idea!

Click on the picture to go to the file.

I literally found this activity by accident while searching on google.  I am always looking for a way for my students to collect their own data and use the math that we are studying.

First, I had my students use our school's set of ipods to find the average high temperatures for two cities of their choice.  They love using the ipods, so this was the perfect chance to use them.

 

Then students organized their data into a rough draft of a box-and-whisker plot.   

When they were finished with their rough drafts, they came to me and got colored bulletin board paper (instead of poster board).  They used yard sticks to make their box-and-whisker plots, since they were such a large scale.

 

 

I think that their end product turned out great!