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Activity I: Will Women Athletes Ever Catch and Surpass Their Male Counterparts? (Grade Level 5-8)
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Standards
Standard 2: Patterns, Functions, and Algebra
Standard 5: Data Analysis, Statistics, and Probability
Standard 9: Connections
Objectives
- read, interpret, and reason from graphic representations
- fit straight lines to data
- determine the equation of a line
- determine the point of intersection of two straight lines
- find the y-value of an equation for a given x-value.
Activity I
The following graphs
are the simultaneous plots of the Olympic records for men and women in
the same event over the same years.
- Explain why the
plots for the 100-meter freestyle decrease while the plots in the high
jump graph increase.
- Judging from the
graph, does it appear that the women will ever jump as high as the men
jump in the same year? Explain.
- Judging from the
graph, does it appear the women and men will ever swim the 100-meter
freestyle in the same record time in the same year?
- Draw straight
lines on the high jump scatter plots, find their equations, and use
that information to support your arguments from problem 2.
- Draw straight
lines on the freestyle scatter plots, find their equations, and use
that information to support your arguments from problem 3.
- Use the equations
of the lines created in problem 5 to determine the year when the women
will swim the 100-meter freestyle in the same time as the men. What
is that predicted time?
- Do you think
that the solution to problem 5 is a possible achievement? Explain
your reasoning.
*This activity
could be modified for an elementary level by eliminating problems 4-7.
This activity could also be modified for upper level students. Have
students determine if they find the "best" fit lines in problems 4
- 7 to be least squares linear regression lines. Then have them determine
a model with a "better" fit and write a supporting argument for their
choice.
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