Personal Space

Personal Space
The average student room

Jeff LeMieux
Oak Harbor School District 201

Grades 7 to 9

Subjects Mathematics, Measurement, Statistics

Introduction
Applying mathematics to personal experiences makes understanding easier. In this project, students will use their personal environment (e.g. bedroom) as a springboard for practicing measuring skills, applying statistical analysis, and eventually, making predictions about what they would like to have as their ideal personal living space.

Objectives
In this activity, students will:

Make a sketch of their bedroom and/or sleep/study area floorplan (bird's-eye view). Project directors must be sensitive to the possibility of inadequate facilities for some students. They can be provided with a "dummy" room for the purposes of this assignment. (see attachments in the activities section)

Students will measure their room accurately to the nearest inch and record the measurements on the sketch. Measures will include

all walls

location and size of doors and windows

inside the closet

Students will show the location of electrical outlets, light switches, and permanent light fixtures using standard symbols

Students will measure/calculate and list the perimeter and area of the inside of the room and the closet.

Students will make a scale drawing of their room (CAD optional)

Students will collect other appropriate data as needed (room color, occupant gender, number of occupants)

Students will devise a method of distributing and collecting data from all other students in the class/group. (This must include a means of verifying that all students have the same set of data.)

Students will enter data in a spreadsheet.

Students will use the spreadsheet and data to determine mean, mode, and median for the categories

Students will analyse data to determine which is best suited to representing an "average student room"

Optional: Students will use scattergrams(x-y plots) to search for correlations such as occupant gender and room color.

Students will form workgroups to develop a physical 3-D model of the average student room and a presentation product to accompany it for public display.

Students will discuss and devise a questionnaire to determine the characteristics on the "ideal" bedroom

Students will analyse this information to develop a presentation product for the"ideal" bedroom

Materials/Equipment
This activity requires the following resources:

Miscellaneous supplies for sketches and scale drawings (all products to be standard 8-1/2x11 paper)
Student supplied measuring devices (determine if standard or metric before beginning project)
Computers and/or computer access with appropriate spreadsheet software
Checklists and data sheets as suggested in the activities section of this lesson.

Procedure/Sequence

Student will sketch the floor plan of his/her room and enter accurate measurements. Include the exact location and width of doors and windows. Show the location of electrical outlets, light switches, and permanent light fixtures.
Students will convert measurement units into units appropriate for scale drawing.
Students will Make a scale drawing of their room. This drawing will be accompanied by the worksheet used to calculate scale measurement using proportion.
Students will complete the data collection form for their room. This will involve the following information:

room and closet perimeters
room and closet area
number of walls
number of doors and windows
square feet of window area
number of outlets, switches and lights
room color
occupant gender
number of occupants
square footage per occupant
closet footage per occupant

Students will organize their personal data in a standardized form
Students will determine how to disseminate data so all students will have an accurate copy.
Students will enter data into a spreadsheet.
Students will use the spreadsheet to determine mean, mode and median
Students will have to determine how they will assess such things as average gender and average room color. Typically, this will require that they devise a numeric scale based upon their stated criteria.

OPTIONAL: Students will use the data in the spreadsheet to investigate various possible correlations (x-y graphs)between sets of data. Investigations and results can be documented in a journal.
Students will form a workgroup of approximately 4 persons
Each workgroup will construct a model (of cardboard) from their defined "averages" and make some sort of presentation product to explain their choices.
Followup Activities

Each group (or the class) can develop a "needs assessment" or questionnaire to determine what would be an ideal bedroom.
This data can be organized and analysed in a spreadsheet to determine averages.
Workgroups can develop a model and presentation product to augment their original "average" model.

Activities

Background

References

Submitted by Jeff LeMieux <mailto:tackweed@whidbey.net>, Oak Harbor School District 201 <http:/www2.whidbey.net/ohmsmath>