Planet Numeracy

Sayre Area Algebra Students recently engaged in a culminating activity on correlation and regression. Spaghetti and marbles, anyone? How appetizing! The lab experiment… Students attached a styrofoam cup to a twisted paper clip. The cup was then lowered over a predetermined number of strands of uncooked spaghetti. Students recorded how many marbles were required to snap 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 strands of spaghetti. After that, the brainy part started. Students used TI-84 graphing calculators to input the data that they gathered. Once the data were entered, they performed linear regression. Since there was a strong positive correlation, they were able to use their linear model to predict the number of marbles required to break x strands of spaghetti. Looks like they had fun. But don't eat the marbles!