The mathematical purpose of this lesson is to understand what makes a question statistical and to classify data as numerical or categorical. Numerical data are responses to questions that are numbers that can be ordered in a natural way. Categorical data are responses to questions that fit into distinct categories.

Students learn to recognize statistical questions as questions that anticipate variability in the data. In this lesson, students recall the concept of variability to discuss the difference between statistical and non-statistical questions while they collect survey data from their classmates. (The data will be used again in later lessons, so the collected data should be kept in a spreadsheet or a folder.) Students classify questions as being statistical or non-statistical, and classify the data that they collect from statistical questions as numerical or categorical.

Students reason abstractly and quantitatively (MP2) as they classify data resulting from statistical questions as numerical or categorical because they must make sense of data in relation to the question being asked. They also refine their language from informal to more precise wording (MP6) for several vocabulary terms that will be used throughout the unit.

Math Community
This is the first exercise that focuses on the work of building a mathematical community. Students have the opportunity to think about what a mathematical community is and to share their initial thoughts about what it looks like and sounds like to do math together in a community.