Students use dot plots to investigate the relationship between the shape of a distribution and the mean and median.

They begin by using aspects of mathematical modeling (MP4) to select appropriate variables to compare. Then, students make use of structure (MP7) and appropriate tools (MP5) to construct dot plots of data that have prescribed measures of center.

One of the activities in this lesson works best when each student has access to technology that will easily compute measures of center to produce dot plots or histograms because it will help students focus on understanding the relationship between extreme values and the measure of center without distracting with lengthy computations.