A day or two before you want to have the students create the graphs, have the students complete a questionnaire. Here are the questions I've asked (it provided me with enough data for groups of students in 3 classes):
- In which month were you born?
- How many siblings do you have?
- What's your favorite color?
- Whats your favorite food?
- What's your favorite TV show?
- What's your favorite movie?
- What's your favorite book?
- What's your favorite subject/class?
- What's your favorite sport?
- What's your favorite outdoor winter activity?
- What's your favorite outdoor summer activity?
- What's your favorite season?
- What's your favorite restaurant?
- Who's your favorite musician/band?
- What's your least favorite vegetable?
- What color are your eyes?
- In which state were you born?
- How do you get to school?
- What's your zodiac sign?
- What pets do you have?
- What do you want to be when you grow up?
Cut the responses apart and put them in groups.
Divide students into groups and provide each group with one set of data.
Students sort data and decide on an appropriate way to graph it.
Some of the data sets will require more work than others. Some of it will need to be put into groups before it can be graphed. For example, you will probably get a large variety of responses for "What is your favorite restaurant?", so the students may need to graph types of restaurants (i.e. Italian, Chinese, fast food, etc.) rather than specific restaurant names. On the other hand, "What's your favorite season?" is pretty straight forward and easy to graph.
