Pie graphs

Date February Activity
Class 8th grade
Teacher Becky Bruening
Notes

M&M Pie

I used M&M’s and had them make a pie chart to represent the col.  We had already done some charts by hand, so I had them calculate the percent and degrees and then use Excel to create the chart.  I think it is important that they understand the math behind making a chart by hand, as well as being able to use technology to create them.

They did one chart using their package of M&M’s, and another by combining the results of all the M&M's.  After they completed their charts, they went to the web site to see how close their package was to the published average and how close the class was.  They were fairly close.  We were then able to discuss (very informally) the effect of a small sample size so it was a great lead in to some probability topics.  We also took a few minutes to explore other countries – not a super relevant multicultural topic, but they had a lot of fun and it did create some good multicultural questions.