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Grade 6 Math · Level 5, Statistics & Enrichment

Describe Distributions: Center, Spread & Shape

How the lesson starts: Describe Distributions: Center, Spread & Shape

1. Frog Jump Day!

   Welcome to Frog Jump Day at Lily Pad Pond! Coach Toby measured every frog's jump in feet. Now he has a big pile of numbers. How can he describe them all at once? With three words: center, spread and shape. Let's hop to it!

2. Three words, one plot

   Here are 10 jumps. The tallest stack is at 6, so most frogs land near 6 feet. That's the center. The jumps stretch from 4 to 8 feet. That's the spread. The stacks rise in the middle and drop on both sides, like a hill. That's the shape.

3. Let's match the clues

   Coach Toby wrote three notes. Cluster near 10? That tells where values pile up, the middle. Center! Values from 2 to 18? That tells how far they stretch. Spread! Long tail to the right? That's the overall pattern. Shape! Ask: middle, stretch or pattern?