Lesson 6
Survey the Class, Survey the School
Warm-up: Notice and Wonder: Survey (10 minutes)
Narrative
The purpose of this warm-up is to elicit the idea that each bar on the bar graph represents a category, which will be useful when students use survey data to create a bar graph in a later activity.
Launch
- Groups of 2
- Display the graph.
- “What do you notice? What do you wonder?”
- 1 minute: quiet think time
Activity
- “Discuss your thinking with your partner.”
- 1 minute: partner discussion
- Share and record responses.
Student Facing
What do you notice? What do you wonder?
Student Response
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Activity Synthesis
- “This is a graph about students’ favorite science topic. What are some possible categories for the graph?” (living things, space, ecosystems, weather, energy)
Activity 1: Create a Survey (10 minutes)
Narrative
The purpose of this activity is for students to decide on a question and answer choices that they will use to survey a group of students.
Launch
- Groups of 4
- “Think about some topics you could survey students in the class about.” (favorite sport, favorite food, favorite subject)
- 1 minute: quiet think time
- Share and record responses.
Activity
- “Work with your group to choose a topic and create your survey. It should include a question and up to 6 answer choices.”
- 5–7 minutes: group work time
Student Facing
Create a survey that you’ll use with a large group of students. It should include:
- a question
- up to 6 answer choices
Student Response
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Activity Synthesis
- Invite each group to share their questions and answer choices.
- “Does anyone want to revise their answer choices after hearing ideas from other groups?”
- Give students time to revise their survey, if needed.
Activity 2: Survey a Large Group (25 minutes)
Narrative
The purpose of this activity is for students to survey a large group of students. This data set will be used in the next lesson to make a scaled picture graph and a scaled bar graph. This process could take 2–3 days depending on how many students in your school are surveyed.
A blank table for recording survey results is included in the blackline master, but students can also use lined paper. Here is a partial image of the table for reference:
Advances: Speaking
Supports accessibility for: Social-Emotional Functioning
Required Materials
Materials to Copy
- Survey a Large Group
Required Preparation
- A blackline master is provided to record students’ survey results, but they could also record their results using lined paper.
Launch
- Groups of 4
- “You will be asking your survey question to a lot of students. Let’s think about ways to prepare for it so that you could collect data smoothly.”
- “Discuss the questions in the activity with your group.”
- 3–5 minutes: group work time
- Share responses.
- Consider giving each group a copy of the table to record their survey results.
- Students may wish to create a display that shows their question and answer choices. Provide access to tools for creating a visual display, in case requested.
Activity
- 15 minutes: in-class survey time
- Give students additional time if surveying students in another class.
Student Facing
Your group will be surveying a lot of people. This means asking your survey question and giving the answer choices repeatedly.
To prepare for the work ahead, discuss these questions with your group:
- How will you present the survey question and answer choices? Who will present them?
- How will you record and organize the responses? Who will record them?
- How will you make sure you don't record a response from the same student multiple times?
Student Response
Teachers with a valid work email address can click here to register or sign in for free access to Student Response.
Activity Synthesis
- See lesson synthesis.
Lesson Synthesis
Lesson Synthesis
“Today we used a survey to create a set of data.”
“What was the most interesting part of making a survey and surveying other students?” (I got to hear lots of opinions about a topic. I didn’t expect some of the responses. The results were what I expected.)
“What was most surprising as you surveyed students today? Why?” (I didn’t think so many students would have blue as their favorite color. I didn’t realize there were so many third grade students.)
Cool-down: Reflect on Collecting Data (5 minutes)
Cool-Down
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