What data would you capture and graph?

The Public Learning Media Labs ( http://www.plml.org, that's us ) is building a free application engine to help teachers graph data that exists on the web. The engine works by reading a web page selected by a teacher (or student) every 24 hours, and writing existing and new data to a database for graphing or export purposes.

Here are some examples of data that can be easily captured:

Earthquake data: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Maps/10/255_40_eqs.php
Temperature data from your local weather service
Rainfall data

What data would you collect, and how would you use it in your class?

Cheers and thanks for your suggestions!
--Dave / PLML
http://www.plml.org

Tags: capture, data, graphing, instruction, math, new, science, teaching, technology

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Thought I would post what someone sent me -- two great examples:

(1) Tracking change in population growth from http://www.census.gov/ in different cities and
(2) As a math tool for discussing the use of different equations for predicting future values.

More thoughts to add?
--Dave
If I were you, I'd try to find data that's based more on the interests of my students. For example, you could use data on the highest-grossing movies of the week. You could graph the ticket sales of the top-10 touring bands of 2008. You could graph the free-throw percentage of the Boston Celtics.
Chris,

Those are AWESOME ideas. The more dynamic, the better. One of the strengths of the tool is that it automatically updates itself every 24 hours -- which is great for discussing current trends in movies, or the number of fans that a band might have.

Thanks for that input!
--Dave
We're building the beginning of a technology demo, and still collecting more ideas for data capture set. The full discussion will be taking place here: http://plml.org/discuss/viewforum.php?f=19 ... we invite you to join the design team by posting your thoughts about what data might be instructive for students to identify, capture and discuss!
--Dve
Water quality data (pH, temp, DO, flow...) would be great for env'l science classes
As an ELD teacher, I use materials from all content classes to make the learning engaging as well as to prep them for the content classes that they will eventually be entering.

This site is incredible! Though I will of course share it with the math teachers, I see myself using it for language as they compare/contrast data. I can't wait to share it with my math and science colleagues who share the same students I have.

Thank you!

Denise

www.ellteacherpros.com

www.teachingsuccesseswithells.blogspot.com
Dave,

I've just stumbled upon this thread, and I went to the PLML website. It looks like Glean is still in testing phase. I am director of 21st century learning at a K-12 independent school, and we would be very interested in participating in the beta testing. What do I need to do?

Thanks,
Laura

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