6th Grade Math Lesson
Who's Watching? Age Demographics at the Movies
Shared by A STEM Educator
6th Grade3-Act Math45 min
Learning Objective
Students will construct frequency tables, histograms, and box plots from raw data, and interpret how each display reveals different features of a dataset's distribution.
Lesson Overview
Students analyze customer age data for a movie theater using histograms and box plots to help a marketing team decide which films to promote to which age groups. The lesson builds from estimation to construction to comparison of both display types.
Materials
- Paper
- Pencil
- Whiteboard and markers
- Basic calculator or phone
Scaffolded Task Progression
1Task 1
Warm-Up — Quartile Primer: The teacher writes these 12 test scores on the board in order: 54, 61, 67, 70, 73, 75, 78, 82, 85, 89, 91, 96. Draw a line dividing them into four equal groups of 3. What value sits between Group 1 and Group 2? Between Group 2 and Group 3? Between Group 3 and Group 4?
2Task 2
Look at the theater lobby image. Estimate: if you sorted all 20 customers by age from youngest to oldest, what age would be right in the MIDDLE of the list? Give a too-low guess, a too-high guess, and your best guess.
Unlock the full lesson
See all 6 scaffolded tasks, the full answer key, warm-up, exit slip, and a print-ready version — free to start.
Create a free accountAlready have an account? Sign in
Make it your own
Like this lesson but want to tweak it?
Make an editable copy and adjust the tasks, warm-up, and answer key to fit your class — no need to start from scratch.