Surfing Amusement parks

SCORE Mathematics

Standards Connections

Surfing Amusement Parks

Introduction: It's your birthday and your parents have given you the choice of going to any one of five amusement parks in California. There is just one catch! They have asked that you choose one with an entrance fee that is the median price range. Surf the Internet to find how much it will cost for your family to go to each park. Graph your findings.

Prior Knowledge: Understanding of the term "median". Skill in double digit addition and/or multiplication. Basic understanding of bar, line and circle graphs.

Grade Level: 4-7

Task: Students will go to five amusement parks in California, calculate the entrance fees, find the park with the median price and graph the results.

Resources:

TM Event Guide-Six Flags Magic Mountain
Disneyland Park-Anaheim, California
Where to Coast -» Paramount's Great America
Ticket Prices Information (Santa Cruz Boardwalk)
Park Fast Facts (Universal Studios)
Graphs For Presentations - (on the "Table of Contents" under "Design")
Graphing paper

Process:
Go to each of the five amusement parks: Six Flags Magic Mountain, Disneyland, Great America, Santa Cruz Boardwalk and Universal Studios. Compute how much it will cost for your family to enter the park. After gathering all of the information, graph your results. Decide which graphing process will be used: bar, line or circle graph. You will also need to decide how your graph will be labeled and the value each unit will receive. Your results will be shared with the class.

Learning Advice: Before graphing your results, it might be well to gather all of the information first and order this information either from most expensive to least expensive or least expensive to most expensive. When all the information is organized, then graph the results. Be sure the type of graph you choose clearly presents the information you have gathered.

Evaluation: Student will be evaluated on the final graphing project and on the calculations used in reaching the final product. If students work in a group, they might also graph the results of all group members and receive a group grade for this effort.

Extensions: Students might calculate the cost of parking, food, motel/hotel accommodations, etc. for a weeks vacation. Internet sites do give motel/hotel rates and e-mailing a specific restaurant for a menu might be another variation. Students might also calculate the cost of getting to the park, (e.g. airfare or gasoline, if driving). There are also discount rates offered for many of the parks, and students might compare and decide which park offers the best deal.

Conclusion: Students will have learned to use the Internet, if only in a limited area, and hopefully will realize its limitless possibilities. They will also see the value of mathematics in everyday life and refine their calculating and graphing skills.

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California Mathematics Academic Standards:

Grade 4:
Statistics, Data Analysis and Probability
1.0 Students organize, represent, and interpret numerical and categorical data and clearly communicate their findings.
1.1 formulate survey questions; systematically collect and represent data on a number line; and coordinate graphs, tables and charts
1.2 identify the mode(s) for sets of categorical data and the mode(s), median, and any apparent outliers for numerical data sets

Grade 5:
Statistics, Data Analysis and Probability
1.0 Students display, analyze, compare, and interpret different data sets, including data sets of different sizes.

1.1 know the concepts of mean, median, and mode; compute and compare simple examples to show that they may differ
1.4 identify ordered pairs of data from a graph and interpret the meaning of the data in terms of the situation depicted by the graph

Grade 6:
Statistics, Data Analysis and Probability
1.0 Students compute and analyze statistical measurement for data sets.

1.1 compute the range, mean, median, and mode of data sets
1.4 know why a specific measure of central tendency (mean, median, mode) provides the most useful information in a given context

2.0 Students use data samples of a population and describe the characteristics and limitations of the samples

2.3 analyze data displays and explain why the way in which the question was asked might have influenced the results obtained and why the way in which the results were displayed might have influenced the conclusions reached

Grade 7:
Statistics, Data Analysis and Probability
1.0 Students collect, organize, and represent data sets that have one or more variables and identify relationships among variables within a data set by hand and through the use of an electronic spreadsheet software program.

1.1 know various forms of display for data sets, including a stem-and-leaf plot or box-and-whisker plot; use the forms to display a single set of data or to compare two sets of data
1.3 understand the meaning of, and be able to compute, the minimum, the lower quartile, the median, the upper quartile, and the maximum of a data set

NCTM K-4:

STANDARD 1: MATHEMATICS AS PROBLEM SOLVING
STANDARD 2: MATHEMATICS AS COMMUNICATION
STANDARD 3: MATHEMATICS AS REASONING
STANDARD 4: MATHEMATICAL CONNECTIONS
STANDARD 6: NUMBER SENSE AND NUMERATION
STANDARD 7: CONCEPTS OF WHOLE NUMBER OPERATIONS
STANDARD 8: WHOLE NUMBER COMPUTATION
STANDARD 11: STATISTICS AND PROBABILITY
STANDARD 13: PATTERNS AND RELATIONSHIPS

NCTM 5-8:

STANDARD 1: MATHEMATICS AS PROBLEM SOLVING
STANDARD 2: MATHEMATICS AS COMMUNICATION
STANDARD 3: MATHEMATICS AS REASONING
STANDARD 4: MATHEMATICAL CONNECTIONS
STANDARD 5: NUMBER AND NUMBER RELATIONSHIPS
STANDARD 7: COMPUTATION AND ESTIMATION
STANDARD 8: PATTERNS AND FUNCTIONS
STANDARD 11: PROBABILITY