This worksheet is again about White Bear Lake and its shrinkage. This time, though, it's all about visualizing data. Data about surface elevation and surface area from the Minnesota DNR is again presented in the worksheet, and students are asked to graph it two ways. Which way is better for presenting the information?
I want to provoke an argument here! Getting students to argue in a constructive and respectful way is a great tool for pushing critical thinking and reasoning, as well as practicing language skills. Here, students need to think about the meaning of the information they're trying to present and then argue for which graphical representation is most effective. If I were teaching this in eighth grade I'd get students to write a news article about White Bear Lake, using mathematics and their own research!