Bob Vialpando & Randy Grove

Subject Area: Statistics

Grade Level: High School

Unit Title: Designing and Analyzing an Observational Study

Lesson Title: Starbucks Customers

Objectives The students will discuss methods of obtaining data to support or deny that there are more female than male coffee drinkers. The students will decide and implement specific methods of obtaining data to support or deny that there are more female than male coffee drinkers.

Objective/Purpose To develop skills necessary to collect and analyze data to support or deny a hypothesis. To develop the skills to validate the data and the value of the conclusions.

Anticipatory Set How many of you drink coffee? How many people in your household drink coffee? Do more males drink coffee than females? Do more females drink coffee than males?

Input Let’s say that you are hired as an advertising firm by Starbucks. You are to decide what gender to tailor its ads to, men or women. What would you do as the advertising firm? How will you decide how many men buy coffee and how many women by coffee? How many hours do you need to observe coffee sales for the sample to be valid? What days and hours need to be observed to make sure you have an accurate sampling? How many people do you need to observe to have a valid sample?

Input Continued Decide on days and hours Decide on how many people (every, third, tenth) Decide on verification of ordering coffee

Materials/Resources Needed: Schedule of store hours; transportation to/from store; writing utensils; tally sheets; written directions for specific data collection; permission of store manager.

Check for Understanding From notes on the board, we will: Follow schedule (days/hours) Log data on how many males/females buy coffee Input data into spreadsheet Look for conclusions/errors Consider what would have made this study better

References Madeline Hunter lesson plan format unter.html 2006; 10/25/11 unter.html Shaughnessy, M., Chance, B., and Kranendonk, H. (2009). Focus in high school mathematics: Reasoning and sense making in statistics and probability. NCTM. Key Curriculum Press: Exploring Statistics with Fathom, 2007