This Quest is Quest #8 on 21 Things for Students under Thing 13. Dig the Data
In this Quest you will use Box and Whiskers graphs to help analyze the data to make your recommendation. Being able to find, organize, and analyze data is an important skill you are likely to use for future employment and for courses you take. You may have some opinions or ideas on the best cell plan, but a Box and Whiskers plot will give you a fresh way to look at the plans. Your task is to make a recommendation on how many voice minutes and text messages should be included in a family plan to meet the most needs. It is likely that not everyone will get what they want and compromises will need to be made. The data you will be using is based on national statistics by age group.
Here are your instructions: http://21things4students.net/downloads/dig_the_data/whiskers_20130821_092901_1.pdf
For both the text messages and voice calls:
Find Quartile 1 by finding the median (middle number) in the series of numbers between the low number and the median. (For example: 398, 587, 631, 757, 896, 952, 981. 757 is the median of all the numbers and the numbers below the median are 398, 587, and 631. The median of those numbers is 587 because it is in the middle of those numbers. 952 is in the middle (or median of the numbers above the overall median. Therefore Quartile 1 is 587, Quartile 2 is 757 and Quartile 3 is 952.
STEPS to be completed after:
Copy and paste the following questions into a Weebly text box, discuss them with a partner and then answer them in your document.
- What does the median tell you about the data collected?
- Why are Quartile One and Quartile Three important?
- Which was more difficult to decide on: voice minutes or text messages? Why?
Time for your recommendation. This will be completed in three steps.
- You decide on how many minutes your family should purchase and how many text messages your family should purchase. Be prepared to defend your answer. Use your data plots and keep in mind that not everyone may have all of the voice minutes they are used to using, or all of the text messages they are used to having!
- When you are prepared with a reasonable plan for your family, defend your solution to your class. After discussion with the class, write a paragraph which will serve as a sales pitch for your recommendation, using terms such as median, quartile, and data. For example: Based on the voice call data for my family, I recommend a plan that has an average number of voice calls of 800 minutes because most members of the family are above the median of 757 minutes and they fall in the third quartile.
Post your paragraph recommendation for text messages on your website and the answers to the questions above.
Give yourself a pat on the back for completing this difficult quest!