Which Are The Bounciest Type Of Sports Balls?

Yesterday a mix of children were working with Mr K to find out about collecting data, analysing data and different ways of presenting information that is fair and does not contain bias.

We started the day by watching this video by OK Go. After watching, we discussed what maths might have been involved in the filming and production, then viewed this video that had one of the musicians answering this question. It was fascinating to see all of the data in their spreadsheets and how accurate it all needed to be in order for everything to go as planned.



It was interesting to examine some graphs that had been poorly constructed. We picked them apart and noticed how they contained bias, which was a new word for us, or why they were misleading. Often graphs can be misleading when they do not have a random survey sample, or when the shape or positions of the graphs have been altered to show a more desired result. Some of these problems are mentioned here.

We all tried to come up with survey questions for the rest of our group that were fair. Due to the limited number of responses available in a multi-choice survey, questions about opinions could sometimes seem a little biased. These might include questions like 'What is your favourite fast food?', and then only having 4 or 5 options chosen by the questioner. Alternatively, questions like 'Are you left or right handed?' or 'In which month were you born?' did not contain any bias.

The main project for the day was a group one. After chatting about our favourite sports balls, we began an investigation to find which type is the bounciest. We had time to plan our investigation and used a template that Mr K shared, which included things like materials needed, how we would collect and record the data, and what our hypotheses were.

We then conducted our investigations. The most challenging part was trying to gather the most accurate data we could. Check out the video below to see how we approached the task.



The final stage in this project is for us to create some displays to share our information and to make conclusions. What happened? What does and doesn't the information we analysed tell us? Were our hypotheses correct? How could we have approached this investigation differently?

Check out our individual blogs next week for personal learning reports and additional media.