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Using NBA Statistics for Box and Whisker Plots

This lesson plan uses the heights of NBA players from one professional team as the data for students to create a box and whisker plot. The assessment and extension sections provide questions that require the student to analyze the data and compare it to data when one or more extremes are removed from the data set. Excellent resource for box and whisker plots. This plan could be used as a lesson or for assessment, either formative or summative. Also, data from the sports team in the school's locale could be used instead of the data given in the lesson.

Weblink address (URL): 
Using NBA Statistics for Box and Whisker Plots

Standards & Objectives

Learning objectives: 

In this lesson, students will:

  • Collect data on the height of the Houston Rockets' players.
  • Create box and whisker plots.
  • Compare and analyze different box and whisker plots.
Essential and guiding questions: 
  • What happened to the medians? Explain why.
  • What happened to the maximums? Explain why.
  • What happened to the first and third quartiles? Explain why.
  • What happened to the mean? Explain why.
  • How does the plot change if the shortest player is removed?
  • Suppose the height of a player near the middle of the ordered list is removed instead of Yao Ming. How will the statistics change?
  • What effect does Yao Ming have on the range and the mode?
  • Suppose the heights of Yao Ming and just 4 other numbered players are used to make a box and whisker plot. What effect does removing Yao Ming from the data have on the plot?

Lesson Variations

Blooms taxonomy level: 
Applying
Extension suggestions: 
  • Students could use another team’s roster and eliminate the tallest or shortest player as suggested in the Assessment Options section.
  • Ask students to use the Rockets data again to make a new plot, but this time eliminate player(s) with the median height. What differences do they observe between the plots?
  • If Internet access is available, students could research to determine the shortest player in the NBA, and then find that player’s roster.

Helpful Hints

Materials:

  • Internet access for current Houston Rockets roster or 2007-08 Roster 
  • Graphing calculator (optional)
  • NBA Team Players Activity Sheet 

References

Contributors: 
Ashley King
Originator: 
Ayers Institute for Learning & Innovation