Summer SAVY 2022/Session 3 – Data Discoverers for Rising 3rd/4th Grade
Friday: Survey says….Data Discoverers was a success!! What an amazing week we had learning how to be research scientists! You can look at the “data” that your child is bringing home today and realize how much they’ve grown as researchers! Here are some (not all) of the items you will find in your child’s folder. Go through the folder and talk to your child how we practiced each type of research this week!
- Student Mathematician Journal
- Newscast outline and script on weather historical data
- 2 independent research study outlines
- Data Notepad
Today students created their mystery bag for their student they collected data on all week. Students LOVED making them with Makerspace items. They had to have five obvious items and five non-obvious items that were inferred from the data collected. Almost all the students were able to guess their partner’s bag about themselves! I guess they collected good data! After break everyone gave their newscast presentations on a historical research question! We had a backdrop with music and students sat in a professional chair as they read their news scripts! It felt very realistic and informative!
Finally, students worked on their final independent research project. Each person chose one type of research, created a question based on what they were curious about, gathered data, organized their data in the form of a graph, and drew conclusions. Due to time, not everyone finished their poster boards. It would be wonderful to have them finish it and present it sometime over the summer! Ask your child about each of the five steps and why they chose to research the topic chosen. I truly feel like the students are prepared to research whatever challenging question comes their way!
Thank you for letting your child spend the week with us at SAVY! I hope to see them again at future camps!
Thursday: Today’s SAVY forecast was exciting with a lot of rain! HUH? Students continued learning about historical research, focusing on weather! Like yesterday, students worked on a group-based question first and then were able to develop their own research question to answer. Many students were interested in large storms, flooding, and tsunamis (hence why I said there was a lot of rain in today’s forecast!) Their presentations were in the form of newscasts! Each student used their information from the five research steps to write a report that they performed in front of the class. We have some natural reporters in our session! Maybe one of them will become a meteorologist one day! What we can’t predict though is the weather! Ask your child about some of the weather bloopers we watched!
Today we continued to wrap up other activities from the week. Yesterday we completed a class survey on what the students saw as a potential SAVY problem. Today they created brochures that communicated the five steps of the research process for this problem. Tomorrow they will present and give them to SAVY admin in hopes that they may increase the amount of free time in future SAVY sessions. Students included their recommendations for solving this problem such as structured activities during that time like recess, computers, or time to read!
Tomorrow students will finish their final research projects on a problem of their choice. They will choose their favorite type of research to develop a question around and will create a visual to display the five steps of research!
Wednesday: If I had to survey our class, I think they would say this has been their favorite day so far! From writing recipes, to doing the “Cha Cha Slide”, to surveying over 70 SAVY students, and finally researching about the Olympics, it was a great day!
This morning students studied bar graphs. To prove their proficiency with this type of graph, each group created a recipe card for making a bar graph. They “tested” their recipes by creating a graph for a survey question. We also played Graph Grab Bag! Each student chose a different survey question to graph, only this time they could not put any labels on the graph. Afterwards students were given a survey question and had to use deductive reasoning to figure out which graph matched a friend’s question. Once students mastered graphs, they were ready for their SAVYwide Survey Project! Students were tasked to create a survey that would solve a SAVY problem. They brainstormed things they thought could be changed and then voted. The majority wanted to survey students around free time during the week. Our question was, “Should students have more free time at SAVY each week?” To answer this question, students came up with four questions to ask.
1. Do you think there should be more free time at SAVY?
2. Do you like to be outside during your free time?
3. What would you like to do during your free time at SAVY?
- Computer Lab
- Outside
- Board games
- Read books
4. Do you like ORA?
We were able to survey 6 classes and over 70 students! Students will analyze the data and draw conclusions tomorrow!
In the afternoon students learned about historical research. To kick off our Olympic research, each student received a medal that they were able to take home! We also played Olympic Scattegories which even challenged my Olympic knowledge, so their medals were well deserved! They worked in the computer lab most of the afternoon developing research questions about the Olympics, organize data and creating charts from the data, and writing conclusions about their data. I was impressed by their ability to research! Ask your child about their projects tonight!
Tuesday: We dove deep in data today by finishing up our experimental research and starting descriptive research!
This morning we continued discussing mean, median, and mode using our data from Minute to Win It and recognized how relevant these terms are in sports, jobs, and even the housing market! To organize our class data set, students learned how to make a line plot. When data are organized in a line plot, students are better able to describe what is typical about the set. A challenging aspect of line plots was deciding what intervals to use so that all the data could be represented. The culminating activity for each type of research will have students plan a study that goes through all the steps of the research process. For experimental research, each student chose a question to answer that involved an “experiment”. They made a hypothesis, conducted an experiment, analyzed data, and drew conclusions. I was impressed by the originality of their questions!
In the afternoon we went from quantitative to qualitative data. Asking and answering questions is a key component of descriptive research. Therefore, we spent time analyzing bar graphs and double bar graphs to determine what information can be found (and not found) from the graphs. Students will spend time creating a variety of graphs to represent the same data during descriptive research. Right before we left for the day students created and gave their first survey. Many surveys will collect both categorical and numerical information. Tomorrow students will consider which method will be best to represent their data and design their own descriptive research project! For a bonus activity, I challenged students to create a give a survey to their family at home tonight for fun!
Monday: What a fun day today in Digging for Data as research scientists! To get to know one another, students answered some questions about themselves and shared it with a partner. Each day they will gather more “data” on the same partner to create a mystery bag about their partner on Friday. Will their partner be able to guess which bag represents him or her? How well do we know ourselves?
In the morning we focused on the components of the research process. There are 5 steps to being a successful researcher:
1. Formulating a Research Question and Making a Hypothesis
2.Gathering Data to Answer the Research Question
3. Organizing and Representing the Data
4. Interpreting and Analyzing the Data
5. Drawing Conclusions and Presenting the Research Results
We practiced identifying the 5 steps by analyzing an actual research study on backpacks. Nothing is worse than a sore back after a long day at school! Consumer Reports for Kids did a study and found the best backpacks to keep your back from hurting. Don’t be surprised if your child comes home and analyzes his or her backpack!
After lunch we played Minute to Win It! in teams. Each team created their own game for the last round. Ask your child about what games they played and even make up your own at home tonight! This game introduced the first type of research we are going to study, experimental research!
In the afternoon we conducted a simple experiment and gathered data on rates. Students explored the concept of typical as median and calculated the median of a data set. Tomorrow we will make a line plot to organize our data and students will create their own experimental research study!