Web Link Lesson Plan

John Reker & Justin Matson
Grade Level: 6-9
Course: Mathematics

Rationale: This lesson is designed to connect given data and statistical analysis in a real world example of gas prices. This lesson is being done to expose the use of data, research, and math in an everyday example. This lesson fits the context of measures of central tendency (mean, median, mode) taught beforehand and will now compare the data using statistical analysis. This lesson will be followed by a more in-depth lesson on probability, including standard deviation and histograms.

Objectives:
Students will be able to use specific Internet sites to research the history of gas prices in a particular state.
Students will be able to organize and analyze the data that was researched onto a scatter plot, showing a connection of rising and falling gas prices.
Students will be able to research/explain the reasons behind changes in gas prices.
Students will be able to use Microsoft Excel to created scatter plots and histograms of the researched data.

Activities:
1. Introduction – Students will get on the Internet for 5 minutes and search for the state with the highest gas prices.
2. Class Activity - Discuss the students’ findings and give reasons why gas prices could be higher in certain states than others.
3. Individual Activity – Each student will research a given state and over a 6 month period, will record weekly average gas prices for that respective state. The students will make a scatter plot of the data on Microsoft Excel and find a weekly mean over the six month period.
4. Oral Presentation – Each student will present their respective state, the mean gas price over the six month period, and the reasons why the prices rose or fell over the time frame.

Resources and Materials Needed
School Computers
Microsoft Excel
http://edweb.sdsu.edu/wip/examples.htm (Web Inquiry Site of original lesson)
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/03/28/gas.prices/ (Web site on web inquiry for student research)

Assessment: The teacher will know what knowledge the students have gained by their completion of the scatter plot on Excel, their use of Internet searching for their state, and their presentation of their particular states gas prices and averages. The class will also have an exit slip on what common reason causes the fluctuation in gas prices in different states.