Introduction | Task | Process | Evaluation | Conclusion | Back to Lecture

If you are reading an article in a  magazine or in the newspaper and come across a lot of numerical data, what would you do?  Let's be honest.  Most people would skip over the numbers and go right on reading the article.  However, if you were to come across a picture of the data, in other words, a graph, you might look at the graph and attempt to draw some conclusions, before you continued reading the article.

In this chapter, we looked at creating a various types of graphs, specifically histograms, bar graphs, pareto charts, pie graphs, scatter plots and box plots.  In this webquest, you will be creating a histogram to show how many runs are scored by your favorite baseball team. 

Go to the website http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/index.jsp. Go to the bottom of the page and click on the arrow next to "Jump To" and select the "roster" of your favorite team.

From the homepage of your favorite team.

• go to the column labeled R (which stands for runs);
• records the list of runs scored by each BATTER of your favorite team;
• determine the class width;
• create a frequency table;
• use Statdisk to create a histogram, based on your frequency table;

The Process

1. What is the name of the team you chose?
2. Record the number of runs scored by each BATTER of your team.  The number of runs is located in the column labeled R.  Do NOT use the number of runs scored by a pitcher.  These are the runs give up by your favorite team.
   
   

   Runs

    

3. Use the SORT feature of your TI to sort the data.  It will make creating the frequency table easier.
4. Use the formula class width = (largest data element - smallest data element) / (number of classes) to determine the class width.  You may round this number up to the next convenient whole number.  However, remember not to round up too much or you will have empty classes.  My advice is to use 7 classes.
5. Beginning with the smallest data element, create your lower class limits;
6. Create the corresponding upper class limits;
7. Determine the tallies for each class;
8. Create the frequency table
   

   Lower Class Limit	Upper Class Limit	Tally

   
   

9. Use Statdisk to create the corresponding histogram; The printout from Statdisk must be submitted as part of the assignment.
10. Compare to the histogram created by your TI. Use the ZoomStat feature of the TI to get a more accurate picture.
11. Briefly describe the appearance of your histogram.  Is is skewed, bell-shaped?
12. Looking at the data and the histogram, is there a relationship between the players who scored few runs and the number of at bats they had?  The number of  "at bats" can be found in the column labeled AB.
13. Hand in the histogram that corresponds to the frequency table created above.   However, I also want you to create a histogram using a class width of 10 and a class width of 30.  Does the shape of the distribution change with the change in class width?

Evaluation

You are required to answer each of the above questions.  When grading your web assignment, I will be using the rubric below.  Each category (calculation, use of technology, theory and written responses) is worth 25 points.  The number of points you get per category is based on the ratings excellent, good, acceptable, poor or blank.   Use the rubric below as a self-check before turning in your assignment.