Lesson Notes By Weeks and Term v5 - Grade 3

Lesson Video

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Performance objectives

• Collect data using tally marks and questionnaires.
• Organise data using tables and bar graphs.
• Read and interpret data from tables and bar graphs.
• Answer questions based on data.
• Use data skills to prepare for exams.

Lesson summary

Data handling is a very important skill. It helps us to collect, organize, and understand information around us. Imagine you want to know what the most popular fruit is in your class. Data handling helps you to find that out! In South Africa, we use data every day - from knowing which is the most popular soccer team, to understanding the weather forecast, to deciding which groceries to buy. Learning about data handling will help you to make better decisions and understand the world around you. It also helps us prepare for tests and exams by learning how to read and interpret data that is often presented in these assessments.

Lesson notes

What is Data Handling? Data handling is all about gathering information (data), organising it in a way that makes sense (like in a table or graph), and then using that organised information to answer questions and make decisions.

Collecting Data: We can collect data in different ways.

Some simple ways are: Tally Marks: Tally marks are a quick way to count things. We use one line for each item, and then cross the lines for every group of five. For example, if we counted 7 apples, we would write: |||| || Questionnaires: Asking people questions and writing down their answers is another way to collect data.

Example: Let's say we want to find out which flavour of Mageu is the most popular in a Grade 3 class. We can ask each student, "Which flavour of Mageu do you like best: Strawberry, Banana, or Cream?" Organising Data: After collecting data, we need to organise it. We can use a table to do this.

Example Table: | Mageu Flavour | Tally Marks | Number of Students | | ------------- | ----------- | -------------------- | | Strawberry | |||| || | 7 | | Banana | |||| | 5 | | Cream | |||| |||| | 9 | Representing Data: Bar Graphs A bar graph is a way to show data using bars of different lengths. The length of each bar represents the amount of something. Example Bar Graph (Based on the Mageu Data): Imagine a graph with the Mageu flavours (Strawberry, Banana, Cream) along the bottom (x-axis) and the number of students along the side (y-axis). The Strawberry bar would go up to the number

7. The Banana bar would go up to the number

5. The Cream bar would go up to the number

9. The graph would clearly show that Cream is the most popular Mageu flavour because its bar is the tallest.

Reading and Interpreting Data: This means looking at the table or graph and understanding what it tells us.

Example: Looking at the Mageu table and bar graph, we can see: The most popular flavour is Cream. The least popular flavour is Banana. 7 students like Strawberry Mageu. A total of 7 + 5 + 9 = 21 students were surveyed.

Exam Preparation and Data Handling: Many exam questions use graphs and tables. Being able to read and understand them is very important. Always look closely at the labels on the graph or table to understand what the data is showing. Practice answering questions based on different types of data representations.

Worked example

Question: A table shows the number of pupils in each grade at a school. Grade 1 has 30 pupils, Grade 2 has 25 pupils, and Grade 3 has 28 pupils. Which grade has the most pupils?

Solution: We read the table to find the biggest number of pupils. Grade 1 has 30 pupils, which is more than 25 and

2

8. So, Grade 1 has the most pupils.

Guided Practice (With Solutions)

Question 1: The table below shows the number of animals on a farm:

| Animal | Number |

| ------- | ------ |

| Cows | 12 |

| Sheep | 8 |

| Chickens| 20 |