Watching the planes

Watching the planes

Pencil and paper
Overview
Using this Resource
Connecting to the Curriculum
Marking Student Responses
Further Resources
This task is about reading information from a bar graph.
Keri lives right under the flight path of planes taking off from a large airport.
One day she counted how many Air New Zealand and how many Jetstar planes took off.
She drew a bar graph, turned on its side, with the bars placed 'back-to-back', at hourly intervals. This graph is shown below.
 

 

a)
In what hour did no Jetstar planes take off at all? __________
 
b) i)
In what hour were the number of Air New Zealand and Jetstar  takeoffs exactly the same?
 
__________
 
  ii)
How many planes in total took off in this hour?
 
__________
 
c)
How many Air New Zealand planes took off in the afternoon?
 
__________
 
d)
Over what two-hour period did exactly the same number of planes from each airline take off?
 
__________
 
e)
Describe one thing in the pattern of takeoffs which is the same for both airlines.
 
 
 
 
Task administration: 
This task is completed with pencil and paper only.
Levels:
3, 4
Curriculum info: 
Maths, Statistics, Statistical investigations
Keywords: 
bar graphs, graph interpretation, bi-variate data
Description of task: 
Students interpret a back-to-back bar graph comparing and identifying a pattern in the data.
Curriculum Links: 
This resource can be used to help to identify students' ability to interpret two bar graphs.
Learning Progression Frameworks
This resource can provide evidence of learning associated with
Statistical investigations, set 4
Statistical investigations, set 5
within the Mathematics Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Read more about the Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Answers/responses: 
  

Y6 (10/1996)

Y7 (10/1996)
a)   12 noon to 1 p.m. very easy very easy
b) i)
ii)		 8-9 a.m.
Eight planes took off [4 from each airline].		 easy moderate
c)   16 [1 + 3 + 4 + 3 + 5 = 16] moderate difficult
d)   Between 1 – 3 p.m. [7 planes from each airline took off],
or  
12 – 2 p.m. [4 planes from each airline took off].		 moderate difficult
e)   Any 1 of:

  • Few planes fly round the lunch hour.
  • Few planes fly in the tea hour.
  • Many planes fly in the early morning.
  • Many planes fly in mid-afternoon.

[Accept other generalised, logical answers].
NOTE: 'More Air New Zealand planes than Jetstar planes took off altogether' is a difference, not a similarity. 'The same number of ANZ as Jetstar planes took off between 8-9 a.m. is insufficiently generalised to gain the mark, and is already covered in c).

 very difficult difficult