MDM4U1 Summative Planner

Introduction:
The culminating project in data management will help to prepare you for a job situation or a research paper or project in university. It is also an opportunity to put the theories and skills you learn in class to use in a real-life situation. The final project will be a finely polished written report in which you will learn how to effectively formulate a problem, set up a system to solve it, solve it, redefine if necessary, write it up in a formal report and present it. All of these are essential skills not only for university research papers and projects but for your future career as well.

Specific Expectations: [adapted from McGraw-Hill Ryerson text – Ch9]
• Pose a problem that can be solved through the organization and analysis of a large amount of data.
• Use your skills from the course to study the problem.
• Produce a written report, complete with diagrams, sample calculations, and an appendix of data. The report must be well-written and clear.
• Project presentation to the class.
• Be prepared to answer questions about the project, justifying the mathematical reasoning.
• Critique the mathematical work of others in a constructive manner.
• Excel or Fathom must be used to analyze the data you collect.

You will be looking for relationships and correlations in the data you obtain. You should use the data, the relationships and correlations you obtain to answer the questions you have posed throughout the project development. The statistical techniques learned in Chapters 2 and 3 will be very useful in interpreting your data.

Final Project Timeline

Submission Due Date - note that entries #1 & #2 are preparation activities; #3 is the actual summative.
1. Proposal, Mind Map Rationale - what is a mind map?
2. Annotated Bibliography
3. Summative Report

Class Time:
There will be ample class time given for research and development of the project. While most of the project can be completed during class time, this is only true if your time is used effectively.

Suggested Topics: [from McGraw-Hill Ryerson – Teacher’s Resource]

The following is a list of suggested topics. Other topics may be chosen with the teacher’s approval.
1. Investigate trends in music sales by comparing rock and urban music sales. Sources: recording companies, trade magazine web sites.
2. Investigate trends in Olympic results, perhaps looking at male versus female results. Sources: Olympic and other sports web sites.
3. Investigate the rising costs of tuition and compare them to incomes. Sources: Statistics Canada and education journals
4. Investigate any correlation between community size and crime rate. Sources: Statistics Canada and police web sites.
5. Investigate whether higher insurance rates for inexperienced young male drivers are statistically justifiable. Does driver training make a difference? Sources: insurance companies, Ministry of Transportation, Statistics Canada.
6. Investigate whether marks/attendance in your school related to personality traits. Sources: in-school survey.
7. Investigate some long-term predictions of the effects of global warming. Sources: meteorological web sites and resources, Ministry of the Environment.
8. Investigate the outlook for youth employment over the next several years. Sources: Statistics Canada, Ministry of Labour, job and career web sites.
9. Does Internet access enhance education? Sources: Internet, schools, education-related sites.

Resources:
• Textbook: McGraw-Hill Ryerson – Mathematics of Data Management, Chapter 9, pages 480-495.
• Example of a Project: www.brocku.ca/cmt/mdm4u/intro.htm
• Data Sets: www.mcgrawhill.ca/links/MDM12 [from this site you can access data for a project or find data through E-Stat]
• Citing electronic Resources: www.cyberbee.com/citing.html

Important:
To help you develop your project you can use the following pages of the text book to help you with each step.
• Defining a Problem (+ using Mind Maps) – p482
• Posing a Problem – p484
• Defining your Task (+ building a hypothesis) – p486
• Developing and Implementing an Action Plan – p488
• Reporting and Presenting – p493

Need further help? Julie Lancaster, a former Ridge data student, has graciously offered some of her materials as a guide. Feel free to read her report and check out her presentation. Just be sure to remember that the work is owned by Julie! No unauthorized borrowing is permitted without Julie Lancaster's written consent. Need more examples? Here's Alex Bouma and Victoria Sherman. Once again, this work is the intellectual property of Alex and Victoria, so no borrowing permitted.