Day 130: Frequency Tables - Histograms

Today in Math 6, students worked with lesson 8.4: Display Data in Frequency Tables and Histograms. This lesson once again had us sorting through large sets of data.

A histogram is a plot that lets you discover, and show, the underlying frequency distribution (shape) of a set of continuous data. This allows the inspection of the data for its underlying distribution (e.g., normal distribution), outliers, skewness, etc. 

Parts of a Histogram:

1. Title: The title briefly describes the information that is contained in the Histogram.
2. Horizontal or X-Axis: The horizontal or X-axis shows you the scale of values into which the measurements fit. These measurements are generally grouped into intervals to help you summarize large data sets. Individual data points are not displayed. 
3. Bars: The bars have two important characteristics—height and width. The height represents the number of times the values within an interval occurred. The width represents the length of the interval covered by the bar. It is the same for all bars.
4. Vertical or Y-Axis: The vertical or Y-axis is the scale that shows you the number of times the values within an interval occurred. The number of times is also referred to as "frequency."
5. Legend: The legend provides additional information that documents where the data came from and how the measurements were gathered.

In Math 6+, students completed a Socrative that dealt with box plots. Mr. Giomini then worked more with how to determine whether a number is considered an outlier.