Which Toothpaste Do You Use? (A Graphing Activity)
Students Survey Classmates, Create Graphs, and Discover Popular Brands
from Education World ®
Subjects: Health, Language Arts, Math, Educational Technology
Grade Levels: preK-2, 3-5
Objectives
Students will:
- collect and compile data,
- use the data to create a graph that represents that data, and
- answer questions about their graphs.
Keywords
data, toothpaste, dental health, dentist, graph, teeth, statistics, bar graph
Materials Needed
- My Survey: What Toothpaste Do You Use? (PDF, 71K) work sheet
- colored pencils or crayons
Procedure
Present each student with a copy of the My Survey: What Toothpaste Do You Use? (PDF, 71K)work sheet.
If you teach younger students, you might write the names of popular toothpastes on the tubes for students. (You might write brand names on four tubes and "Other" on the fifth tube.)
Older students will want to do the survey on their own and create the graph to reflect the survey data they gathered; they might even want to color the tubes on the graph to look like the actual toothpaste tubes.
Have students survey 15 of their friends to learn which toothpaste they use most often. They might survey their classmates or take the survey on the playground at lunchtime. (You probably do not want to have them survey family members, because members of many families will use the same toothpaste; that will throw off the data students collect.) Students should write down each respondent's name and his/her toothpaste of choice.
Once the data is collected, students compile it and color the graph to reflect the survey results.
Have students share their graphs. As students share their graphs, ask questions that require them to read their graphs. For example, you might ask, On your graph . . .
- do more people use Aquafresh or Arm & Hammer?
- which toothpaste is more popular -- Closeup or Pepsodent?
- how many more people use Crest than Colgate?
- how many people in all use either Mentadent or Ultrabrite?
Extend the Lesson
Integrate technology by having students create their graphs using the free and easy-to-use Create a Graph tool. Or you might use that tool to compile and illustrate all the collected data.
Assessment
Use the What Toothpaste Do You Use? work sheet to create a sample graph of your own. Copy that graph onto a transparency. Project the transparency image and have students answer five or ten questions about that graph.
Alternative Assessment: Set up your graph in a learning center and have students answer the questions when it is their turn to complete that center activity.
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