Masterpiece 1

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was a scientist and an artist. He thought that the span of someone’s arms was equal to their height.  Why do you think he was interested in working out body proportions?
Do you think Leonardo’s theories still work today?
Was Leonardo’s theory that a person’s height is equal to their arm span true for New Zealand students?
Students conduct a Statistical Investigation using the PPDAC cycle to see if their height is equal to their armspan.

After this lesson students will know:

• how the statistical investigation process works
• that accurate measurement is important
• that the way in which data is collected can affect the results

Resources:

• Student worksheet
• Teacher instructions

• Graph paper or access to computer or calculator
• Ruler and string or a tape measure

Achievement Objectives

• Level 3
  • S3-1Conduct investigations using the statistical enquiry cycle
    • A gathering, sorting, and displaying multivariate category and whole-number data and simple time-series data to answer questions
    • B identifying patterns and trends in context, within and between data sets
    • C communicating findings, using data displays
• Level 5
  • S5.1B Considering sources of variation