Project Grade 6 Math
Clayburn Creek Report Card: A Four-Session Data Team Project
A grade 6 project where student teams turn four monitoring sites' oxygen readings into percents, medians, and a one-page report card for a fictional watershed council.
Objectives
- Students will find what percent of a set of readings meets a stated benchmark.
- Students will compute the median and range of six readings and interpret both for a non-technical reader.
- Students will build a labeled data display and defend a letter grade using numbers from the data.
Vocabulary
- Dissolved oxygen
- Dissolved oxygen is the oxygen gas mixed into water that fish and other underwater animals breathe. Cold, moving water holds more oxygen than warm, still water.
Also: monitoring site, benchmark, median, range
Teacher overview
Watershed groups publish report cards that give each stretch of a creek a letter grade, because neighbors and town boards can act on a grade more readily than on a table of readings. The driving question for this project is whether a set of monthly oxygen readings supports the grade a team assigns. Teams work from one fictional data set of four monitoring sites, compute percents and medians, and produce a one-page report card with at least one data display. The final deliverable is that page plus a three-minute presentation to the class acting as the watershed council.
Project Brief
The fictional Clayburn Creek Watershed Council has asked your team to write this year's report card. The council has data from four sites. At each site, a volunteer measured dissolved oxygen once a month for six months. Fish need dissolved oxygen above 5 milligrams per liter, so the council uses 5 as its benchmark.
| Site | Month 1 | Month 2 | Month 3 | Month 4 | Month 5 | Month 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mill Road | 8.1 | 7.9 | 7.4 | 6.8 | 6.2 | 5.9 |
| Owl Bridge | 7.6 | 7.2 | 6.4 | 5.5 | 4.8 | 4.6 |
| Tannery Flat | 6.9 | 6.1 | 5.2 | 4.4 | 3.9 | 3.6 |
| Hollow Ford | 5.8 | 5.1 | 4.6 | 4.2 | 3.8 | 3.4 |
The council's grading rule is fixed. Count how many of a site's six readings are 5 or higher. Six readings earn an A. Four or five readings earn a B. Three readings earn a C. Fewer than three earn a D.
Your report card must fit on one side of one page and must include all of the following.
- A letter grade for each of the four sites, using the council's rule.
- The percent of readings that met the benchmark at each site.
- The median reading at each site.
- One labeled data display of your team's choice that compares the four sites.
- One sentence per site, written for a reader who does not know math, that names a number.
- One recommendation telling the council which site to study first, with a reason from the data.
Two rules apply to every claim. Every number on the page must come from the table above, and the plain-language summary must stay under 120 words. Your team also presents the page to the council for three minutes and answers one question from a council member.
Milestones
- Session 1: Count and compute. Each team fills in a table with three columns for every site: how many of the six readings met the benchmark, that count as a percent, and the letter grade from the council's rule. Turn in the completed table at the end of the session.
- Session 2: Center, spread, and a display. Each team finds the median and the range of the six readings at every site, then drafts one labeled display on graph paper that compares all four sites. Turn in the draft display with axis labels and a title.
- Session 3: Draft the page. Each team lays out the one-page report card with the four grades, the percents, the median for each site, the display, one sentence per site, and the recommendation. Turn in the full draft, and trade drafts with another team for one round of written feedback.
- Session 4: Revise and present. Each team revises the page using the feedback, then presents for three minutes to the class acting as the council and answers one question. Turn in the final report card page.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Rubric
Teacher note: at the four fictional sites, the counts meeting the benchmark are 6, 4, 3, and 2, so the percents are 100, about 66.7, 50, and about 33.3, and the grades are A, B, C, and D. The medians are 7.1, 5.95, 4.8, and 4.4 milligrams per liter. The ranges are 2.2, 3.0, 3.3, and 2.4 milligrams per liter.
| Criterion | Exceeds | Meets | Approaching | Beginning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accuracy of computed values | Every percent, median, and range is correct, and one is checked a second way on the page. | Every percent and median is correct for all four sites. | Values are correct for two or three sites, or one median is found from unsorted data. | Values are correct for one site or fewer. |
| Use of the council's grading rule | All four grades follow the rule, and the page states the rule for the reader. | All four grades follow the rule. | Three grades follow the rule. | Two or fewer grades follow the rule. |
| Data display | Display is labeled, titled, correctly scaled, and makes the four-site comparison obvious at a glance. | Display is labeled and titled and shows all four sites correctly. | Display shows the sites but is missing labels, a title, or an even scale. | Display is missing, or it does not match the data. |
| Writing and recommendation | Each site sentence names a number, and the recommendation cites two values from the table. | Each site sentence names a number, and the recommendation cites one value. | Some sentences name no number, or the recommendation gives no data reason. | Sentences and recommendation do not use the data. |
| Presentation | Three minutes are used well, every team member speaks, and the question is answered with a number. | Three minutes are used, and the question is answered. | Presentation runs short or long, or the question is answered without evidence. | Presentation is not delivered as assigned. |
Differentiation
Support
Give these students a partly completed Session 1 table for the fictional Clayburn data with the Mill Road row already filled in as a model, and a printed reminder that a percent is the count divided by 6, times 100. Let them use a bar graph rather than choosing a display type, and let them write each site sentence from the frames in the ELL supports.
Extension
Ask these students to add a second page for the fictional Clayburn Creek Watershed Council that ranks the four sites by median and by percent, then explains any site whose rank changes between the two lists. They should also propose how many additional monthly readings they would want before recommending that the council spend money at one site.
ELL supports
Pre-teach benchmark, median, and site with the data table projected and one row traced across as each word is used. Provide a labeled example page from a previous class or a teacher-made model, and give these sentence frames for the summary: "At ___, ___ of 6 readings met the benchmark, which is ___ percent." and "We recommend studying ___ first because ___."
Extensions
Invite a local watershed group or a county water office to share a real monitoring data set, and have teams repeat the four steps with those numbers. If a real data set is not available, students can extend the fictional Clayburn work by collecting six weeks of readings from a schoolyard rain gauge or a classroom aquarium and grading their own site with a benchmark they write themselves.