Interpreting Dot and Box Plots - How Has the U.S. House of Representatives Changed Over Time?

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Interpreting Dot and Box Plots - How Has the U.S. House of Representatives Changed Over Time?

Activity Description

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Students will create frequency tables, dot plots, and box plots using census data to learn how each state’s number of members in the U.S. House of Representatives changed between 1940 and 2010. Students will also briefly examine a color-coded map to learn how apportionment changed in each state from 2000 to 2010.

Suggested Grade Level

Approximate Time Required

60 minutes

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to create frequency tables, dot plots, and box plots from data.
Students will be able to compare, interpret, and analyze dot and box plots by focusing on the center, shape, and spread of the distributions.
Students will be able to summarize changes in the number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives allocated to each state between 1940 and 2010.

Materials Required

The student version of this activity, 10 pages; it contains images that should be printed in color.
Teacher computer with Internet access and a projector to display web sites
Rulers

A graphing calculator or other graphing technology (e.g. Microsoft Excel) is optional.

Activity Items

The following items are part of this activity. Items, their data sources, and any relevant instructions for viewing the source data online appear at the end of this teacher version.

Apportionment of the U.S. House of Representatives Based on the 2010 Census
Number of Seats in the U.S. House of Representatives for Each State in 1940 and 2010

Download Teacher Version

Download Student Version