Design Your Own Data Story with a Scatter Plot

Get ready to become a data storyteller! In Design Your Own Data Story with a Scatter Plot, you’ll collect or create your own data and use it to design a scatter plot that tells a meaningful story. This hands-on, creative activity lets you explore real-world relationships, spot trends, and show how math connects to everyday life.

You’ll start by choosing two variables that interest you — maybe hours spent studying and test scores, temperature and ice cream sales, or practice time and sports performance. Then, you’ll create a small data set of coordinate pairs that show how one factor changes with the other. Once your data is ready, you’ll plot it on a coordinate grid to form your own scatter plot.

As you study your plot, you’ll look for patterns and trends. Does your graph show a positive correlation (both values increase together), a negative correlation (one goes up while the other goes down), or no clear pattern at all? You’ll describe what your data means and explain how your graph tells a story about the relationship between your chosen variables.