Using Box Plots
Warmup
Activity #1
Use Data to Draw a Box Plot.
Ten sixth-grade students were asked how much sleep, in hours, they usually get on a school night. Here is the five-number summary of their responses.
- Minimum: 5 hours
- First quartile: 7 hours
- Median: 7.5 hours
- Third quartile: 8 hours
- Maximum: 9 hours
- On the grid below, drag the red points to draw a box plot for this five-number summary.
What questions could be answered by looking at this box plot?
Activity #2
Creating Box Plots.
Andre, Lin, and Noah each designed and built a paper airplane. They launched each plane several times and recorded the distance of each flight in yards.
- Study the data and answer the questions that follow.
(1.) Write the five-number summary for the data for each airplane.
(2.) Then, calculate the interquartile range for each data set.
- Draw three box plots, one for each paper airplane.
(3.) How are the results for Andre and Lin’s planes the same?
(4.) How are they different?
(5.) How are the results for Lin and Noah’s planes the same?
(6.) How are they different?
Priya joined in the paper-plane experiments. She launched her plane eleven times and recorded the lengths of each flight. She found that her maximum and minimum were equal to Lin’s. Her IQR was equal to Andre’s.
- Draw a box plot that could represent Priya’s data.
(7.) With the information given, can you estimate the median for Priya’s data?
(8.) Explain your reasoning.
Activity #3
Analyze a Box Plot.
- Compare the following five data sets that have been displayed using box and whisker plots.
- Answer the questions that follow.
(1.) Which of the data sets has the largest range?
(2.) Which of the data sets has the largest Median?
(3.) Which of the data sets has the largest Q1?
(4.) Which of the data sets has the smallest Q2?
(5.) Which of the data sets has the smallest Minimum?
(6.) Which of the data sets has the smallest Minimum?
(7.) Which of the data sets has the smallest IQR?
Challenge #1
Here are box plots that summarize the heights of 20 professional male athletes in basketball, football, hockey, and baseball.
(1.) In which two sports are the players’ height distributions most alike? Explain your reasoning.
(2.) Which sport shows the greatest variability in players’ heights? Which sport shows the least variability?
Challenge #2
Pineapples were packed in three large crates. For each crate, the weight of every pineapple in the crate was recorded. Here are three box plots that summarize the weights in each crate.
Challenge #3
Here is a box plot that summarizes data for the time, in minutes, that a fire department took to respond to 100 emergency calls.
Quiz Time