What color are your eyes?

Activity 1: What Color Are Your Eyes?

C

Concept: Individuals have many different eye colors 
Skills: predicting, collecting data, counting, graphing, computing and interpreting data.

Materials: 2-inch-square pieces of white paper, assorted crayons, chart paper, a glue stick, masking tape

Procedure

1. Get personal. I like to begin science activities with a question, demonstration, or anecdote that connects to my students' lives. For this activity I tell them that when I was pregnant with my first baby, I predicted he or she would have brown eyes –– just like Mom and Dad. Was I ever surprised to meet my blue-eyed son! Then I pass around a snapshot of my husband and me and our three blue-eyed children. I confide that people often ask, "Where did those blue eyes come from?" I tell the class we're going to explore that question.
2. Make predictions. Next, I invite students to create hypotheses to answer two questions. First, "Which eye colors are represented in our class?" It's important that kids establish the eye colors they think will be found, because this prompts them to make observations of one another's eyes. The second question is: "Which eye color will we find most frequently among this group?"
3. Form a living graph. I give each student crayons and a 2-inch-square piece of paper, and ask them to draw a picture of their eyes. I put a line of tape on the floor and invite the whole class to form a series of single-file lines according to eye color. Students note the length of each line and compare their predictions with the actual results.
4. Create an eye-catching chart. Now we convert our living graph into a bar graph. Along the bottom of a piece of chart paper, we list the eye colors found in our group. Students use a glue stick to post their drawings in the appropriate columns. I ask students how the results compare with their predictions and challenge them to state something they have learned from the graph.
5. Develop story problems. I invite students to write (or dictate) a story problem based on the data, and then compile the problems into a booklet for students to swap. Children are highly motivated to solve story problems that involve information they collected themselves. One first grader dictated: "Which eye color has the most?" A third grader posed: "We have 24 kids in our room. Eight of us have hazel eyes. How many of us don't have hazel eyes?"
6. Graph it again. Now I help students make a more abstract version of their graph by asking such questions as: What symbol could you use instead of your drawings? How could you convert the bar graph into a line graph? (Mark a dot at the top of each column of drawings and then connect the dots.)
7. Widen the net. I ask students what would happen if they collected more data on eye color, increasing the sample size. Would their results change? How could they find out? One teacher I know, Ted Smith of Liberty Valley Elementary in Danville, Pennsylvania, had his second graders survey the entire student body! They compiled their data on a hallway graph for all to see. Whether you poll a few grades or your entire school, this activity will get across the concept that increasing the sample size of any survey will give you a truer representation of the population.

Lesson Taken From- Scholastic