Year 3
Task 1
Statistics: How far can we jump?

Lesson 1 • Jumping

Students establish the problem for investigation—How far can students in our class jump?—and determine the data to be collected.

Statistics: How far can we jump?

View Sequence overview

The question defines the problem and shapes what data is collected.

Task

PROBLEM
Jumping

Move to an open space with enough room for all students to jump, such as the playground or school hall.

Pose the initial question: Who likes to jump? Who is a good jumper? Let’s see!

Divide the class into small groups of 3-4 students. Students will work in these groups throughout the course of the investigation.

Explain that in their groups, students are going to jump to see who is a good jumper. Allow students time to show off their jumping skills!

Students may jump in different ways, for example high, long, on the spot, or even with a jump rope. Collect examples of different jumps which you can draw on in the class discussion.

Estimated time
20 minutes
Task type
Class
PROBLEM
Jumping far

Discuss as a class:

  • What is a good jump? How could we decide this?
    • You might share some ‘good’ jumps that you saw.
    • Allow students to share what they think ‘good’ might mean in this context. Student suggestions might include jumps that are high, long or fast.
  • How will we know one jump is better than another jump? 
    • ‘Good’ is generic and has no meaning until it is qualified alongside an attribute of a jump, such as height, speed, or length. In order to compare jumps, students will need to measure jumps using a common attribute. This may not be obvious to students.
    • Discuss the type of jumps (high, long, fast etc.) students might do and decide what type of jump is possible to measure using what is available in the school.

Show students slide 4 of How far can we jump PowerPoint which shows the PPDAC investigation process. Explain to the students that we now have our problem to investigate: How far can students in our class jump?

Discuss how far students predict they can jump and why they think this.

Estimated time
10 minutes
Task type
Class
PROBLEM
Brainstorm ideas

Ask students to return to their groups and brainstorm how they will find out how far students in our class can jump. Students should consider:

  • What do we already know from our own experience about how far students in our class can jump?
  • What do we not yet know about that we still need to find out?

Provide each group with a sheet of paper and coloured markers and/or pencils. Ask students to record their ideas on the paper which will be shared with the class. Make a note of any student ideas that indicate some use of measuring, keeping track, or being accurate.

Conduct a class discussion and invite students to share their ideas. Focus on ideas that include measuring in some way, keeping track of measurements and being accurate with measurements.

Introduce students to the selection of various measuring tools and ask what they might use to measure. Discuss with students what they will need to measure, which measuring tools would be useful and which tools would not.

Estimated time
20 minutes
Task type
Group
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Our design decisions

Select a lens below to see the design decisions behind each step. Understanding our decisions can give you insight to teach, adapt, and differentiate this task.