Winter Olympics: Inquiry into Statistics

Following the excitement of Olympic events, students are involved in an I-search http://www.avon.k12.in.us/hickory/pages/hickoryhome2.htm (click on Media Center then I-Search) activity that helps them develop question and search techniques. Their research provides them with data to enter into spreadsheets and display in graph format.

A lesson plan for grades 6–12 English Language Arts and Information Skills

By Carol Horne, Nancy Cowal, and Victoria Lunetta

About the authors

This is a new year for me, teaching in the brand new Smith Middle School in Chapel Hill. I have taught various disciplines for 30 years, my last 20 as Library Media Specialist at Cape Hatteras School in Buxton. In that role at Smith I have the opportunity to work with many enthusiastic and skilled teachers as together we forge our new school community. Working with my colleagues on this lesson has given me an opportunity to demonstrate to them the value of teaching Information Skills and integrating them into the other curricular areas. Special thanks to Carol Horne who provided the backbone of the project design. She took the ideas of the math teacher infused with the Olympic theme, differentiated for advanced students, and ran with them straight into the Library Media Center.

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Related topics

• Learn more about English language arts.

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Learning outcomes

Goals:

• Students will use research methods to obtain and interpret information.
• Students will gain an understanding of the use of data for statistical purposes.

Objectives:

• Students will design questions for research.
• Students will use special resources to acquire information.
• Students will manipulate data to understand the results of their research.
• Students will display and present findings.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

7 days

Materials/resources

Physical Resources:

• Handouts/electronic pages:
  
  • Rubric
  • I-Search plan template
  • Timeline
  • Sample article: “Organizing, Analyzing, and Evaluating Your Information”
  • List of web sites
• Introductory video (e.g., “Cool Runnings” Walt Disney Productions, 1993)
• Access to catalog and shelf materials

Classroom environment

• Classroom with display capability/Internet access
• Library Media Center space for table work, discussion, presentation, individual computers with Internet access, Browser, spreadsheet software

Setup

• Display systems up and running
• LMC resources available
• Computers available
• Stacks of various worksheets available

Technology resources

Television/VCR

LCD video projector, or LCD palette with overhead projector, or large-screen TV with scan converter, and computer

Computer with Internet access for each student

Pre-activities

• Students are already familiar with use of library media center catalog and use it to find shelf resources and Internet resources.
• Students understand and have agreed to the LMC and the Internet AUPs.
• Students have had experience navigating Internet resources, obtaining and organizing information, and citing sources.
• Students have completed study of Mathematics concepts leading up to this data analysis and graphing activity.

Activities

Day One (1 class period)

Enrichment Specialist

1. Show 3-minute video clip to generate enthusiasm and discussion.
2. Show websites that display Winter Olympics 2002 map and scenes with athletes.
3. Have students think of quantitive questions about the Olympics they would like answered. Share questions and see if they fit into categories.
4. Fact-Storm things learned about statistics and data display so far in math class. See how Olympics questions can incorporate statistics. Have students start Question Log.

Homework: Read an article on athlete of choice. Also view news, Internet sites, TV, etc., for information about Olympics. From this information, generate 5 questions of interest.

Day Two (1 class period)

Enrichment Specialist

1. Share Homework questions.
2. Show PowerPoint mini-lesson on questioning…How to Ask “Phat” Questions. (C. Horne 2002 You can email Carol if you are interested in seeing her slide show.)
3. Share news about Olympics with students.
4. Divide students into small groups to return to Homework questions with tweaking to become more open and “phat.”
5. Give project overview - concepts/rubric and project timeline. (see attachments)
6. Back in small groups: return to questions — refine more to accommodate rubric requirements.

Homework: Get rubric and timeline signed by parents. Keep looking for interesting questions. Question must be in final form by tomorrow.

Day Three (1 class period) — (research plan outline, notetaking outline, recommended web sites list, use of periodical database for articles)

Enrichment Specialist

1. Review rubric and timeline
2. Have each student share new/revised final question.

Enrichment Specialist and/or Media Specialist

1. Create research plan. Explain I-Search method. (We used worksheets from I-Search materials, owned by our school, but we do not have permission to publish here. The I-Search Paper by Ken MacRorie)
2. Demonstrate note-taking structure. Practice with sample article.

Media Specialist

1. Review acceptable use of resources and location of shelf resources in the LMC. Review use of LMC catalog for shelf resources and how to access electronic resources from there.
2. Show selected list of Olympics websites - Ancient Olympics Olympic Sites
3. Demonstrate search on Startsquad.org.
4. Review use of NC Wiseowl to find recommended Olympic web sites.
5. Demonstrate accessing Infotrac via NCWiseowl for newspaper and magazine articles. Help students refine keyword searches by using essential components of their questions.
6. Discuss various types of works to be cited and present QuickCite.
7. Have students begin research with guided practice.

Homework: Continue research over the next week. Students should spend 1 to 2 hours on project.Day Four

Log and oral: Share questions and research finds: most interesting development in your journey into topic; any frustration, questions. Write plan for next step: keywords/resources to try next.

Technology Specialist

Enrichment Specialist or Media Specialist

1. Students continue research and begin data entry if ready.
2. Check status of class — today’s finds, questions, frustrations.

Homework Continue research/spreadsheet

Day Five — Share progress and plan for today.

1. Students work on graph completion.
2. Students practice, if there is time, giving their presentations of findings and using graphs to illustrate.

Day Six --

1. Refine and finish project which is due the next day.
2. Practice presenting for 6th grade audience.
3. Self-evaluate project.

Assessment

Daily closure activity to share progress.
Final outcome-based product rubric. (See attachment, Click here.)
Presentation of findings to group.

Supplemental information

Attachments:

• Evaluation
• QuickCite: doc | rtf
• Ancient Olympics: doc | rtf
• Olympic Sites
• Notes

Related websites

North Carolina Wise Owl Windows on Learning (NC access only, password required, see your Media Specialist for details)
http://www.ncwiseowl.org
Smith LMC Home Page http://www.chccs.k12.nc.us/smith/lmc/
For info on I-Search: http://www.literacymatters.org/content/isearch/phases.htm
Click on Media Center and then I-Search

For information on developing questions:
Module Maker http://questioning.org/module/module.html
Questioning Toolkit http://www.fno.org/nov97/toolkit.html
North Carolina State Library’s Kids’ Portal
http://www.startsquad.org

Olympic Torch Route Across the United States
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/olympics/2002/torchroute/

Nutrition Science & the Olympics
http://btc.montana.edu/olympics/nutrition/

An Olympic Games Primer
http://www.la84foundation.org/6oic/primer_frmst.htm

Olympics from Canada
http://www.collectionscanada.ca/olympians/index-e.html

The Olympic Museum
http://www.olympic.org/uk/passion/museum/home_uk.asp

Infoplease Winter Olympics
http://www.infoplease.com/ipsa/A0115111.html

CNN/Sports Illustrated Winter Olympics
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/olympics/2002/

Multomah Library Olympics Homework Help
http://www.multcolib.org/homework/sportshc.html#olym

The Real Story of
the Ancient Olympics
http://www.upenn.edu/museum/Olympics/olympicintro.html

The Ancient Olympic Games
http://www.hickoksports.com/history/olancien.shtml

Comments

This project started out as a differentiation plan for 6th grade mathematics students. Upon collaboration between the math teacher and enrichment specialist, a plan for developing a more in depth project associated with a classroom activity was made. The media specialist was called in to help orchestrate specifics of searching, information gathering, and notetaking. The technology specialist joined in to provide a lesson extending student knowledge of spreadsheets, in this case, Excel, the final vehicle for displaying the collected data in mathematical terms.