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reSolve: Statistics - Licorice Lines

Teacher guide reSolve: Statistics - Licorice Lines

TLF ID M025305

This sequence of two lessons explores the concept of statistical variation. Students make licorice logs both by hand and by using a Play Doh machine. They record and compare the attributes of both types of licorice by plotting their findings and comparing the shapes of the two plots. Students are then challenged to produce identical licorice sticks. They experiment with strategies to restrict variation and consider the importance of maintaining consistency. Each lesson is outlined in detail including curriculum links, vocabulary, materials needed, sample answers, discussion points and student resources. This sequence is part of the reSolve: Maths by Inquiry program.

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Educational details

Educational value
  • This resource is valuable for the year 3 mathematics content description about measuring objects using familiar metric units of length and mass. Students measure and record the dimensions and mass of their own manufactured licorice sticks using the units centimetres and grams.
  • This resource is also extremely valuable for the year 3 mathematics content descriptions about collecting data, organising into categories and creating, interpreting and comparing data displays. Throughout the sequence, students collect and organise multiple sets of data about their licorice sticks, then create, compare and interpret graphs from their data.
  • This resource also offers opportunities to link to the Numeracy General capability, as it engages students in collecting and describing data based on at least one variable and displaying their licorice data as lists, tables and graphs.
  • This resource is also of pedagogical value as it supports teachers in building an inquiry-focused learning environment with authentic application of mathematical skills and understandings. The unit aims to develop content knowledge as well as assisting students to understand the process of inquiry.
Year level

3

Topics Measuring instruments Data analysis Kilograms Data representation Length Volume (Dimensions) Metres Graphs (Data representation) Spreadsheets Mass Statistical frequency SI units Discrete data Categorical data
Learning area
  • Mathematics

Other details

Contributors
  • Contributor
  • Name: Education Services Australia
  • Organization: Education Services Australia
  • Description: Data manager
  • Address: VIC, AUSTRALIA
  • URL: http://www.esa.edu.au/
  • Copyright Holder
  • Name: Australian Government Department of Education and Training
  • Organization: Australian Government Department of Education and Training
  • Publisher
  • Name: Australian Academy of Science
  • Organization: Australian Academy of Science
  • Description: Publisher
  • URL: https://www.science.org.au/
  • Resource metadata contributed by
  • Name: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Organisation: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Address: AUSTRALIA
  • URL: www.esa.edu.au
Access profile
  • Unknown
Learning Resource Type
  • Online
Rights
  • © Australian Government Department of Education and Training 2019. Unless otherwise indicated, this material may be used in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.