Class 7 · Unit project
Unit 4 project: One honest chart
Collect a little data yourselves, clean it, and make one chart that tells the truth — then make it lie on purpose, and show the class the trick.
The task
This unit you sorted formats, collected four ways, cleaned a messy log, chose charts and caught one lying. Today your group does the whole job on its own data — and ends with one chart you'd be happy to pin up in the corridor.
Work in groups of 3–4. One period. Everything in honest-<group>.ods.
Choose a question (3 min)
Pick one. Every one is about things, not people — no names, no marks:
- How much does each group's water bottle hold — and how full is it right now?
- How many steps is it from our classroom to the lab, gate, library and canteen?
- What is the temperature by the window, the door and the middle of the room?
- How many books are on each library shelf?
Collect and clean (15 min)
- Method: observe, ask, measure or digital? Write it down with its weakness.
- Predict the answer to your question before you collect anything.
- Collect at least 8 values into Calc, headings in row 1. Is this structured data?
- Clean it: errors and duplicates · missing values marked (never invented) · sorted · grouped if it helps.
Chart it honestly (12 min)
- Choose bar, line or pie — and write one sentence on why it fits your question.
- Make it honest: a title, axis labels, units, and an axis that starts at 0.
- Write one conclusion the data supports, and one it can't — "it can't tell us why…"
- Now make it lie: copy the chart and change one thing — the axis, the chart type, a missing label. Note what the trick makes people believe.
Your own line (5 min, alone)
Each person writes two sentences: how accurate and how precise your measurements really were, and what you'd do to make them better. Sign with your roll number. This part is marked for you alone.
Share (5 min)
Hold up the honest chart and the lying one side by side. Can the class spot the trick?
How it is marked
Each row is marked 0–3. Rows 1–5 are shared by the group; row 6 is yours alone. Marks are returned privately and never compared with anyone else's.
Total: 18.
1. Collecting
- 0Missing
- 1Data, no method
- 2Method named with its weakness
- 3And collected only what was needed, nothing personal
2. Cleaning
- 0Not cleaned
- 1One step
- 2The four steps
- 3Four steps, and missing values honestly marked
3. The right chart
- 0Missing
- 1A chart
- 2The right type, with a reason
- 3Right type, reason tied to the question
4. Honest chart
- 0Missing
- 1Some labels
- 2Title, labels, units, zero axis
- 3And a conclusion the data supports, plus one it can't
5. The lying version
- 0Missing
- 1Changed, not explained
- 2One trick, explained
- 3One trick, and what it makes people wrongly believe
6. Accurate and precise
Just you- 0Missing
- 1Vague
- 2Says how accurate and how precise
- 3And a real way to make them better