It is my belief that mathematics should be accessible to every student. To make it more accessible. it is necessary to relate at much of it as possible to real life data. Technology can help us do this. We can use the Internet to help us find databases to use. However, I think it is even more meaningful when the data comes from the students themselves. That was my goal in this scatter plots lab. I purposefully chose two different types of datasets that the students could easily obtain, one that should be linear data, one one that should not. If we study scatter plots and lines of best fit by using arbitrary ordered pairs, we lose an importantaspect of the lesson. That is, we miss the fact that there are scientific and natrural relationships between some pairs of numbers. Not all pairs have a linear relationship.

I feel that this lab activity reaches several different types of learners. By looking at and drawing the graphs, I am reaching my visual learners. However, I am also reinforcing their skills in writing equations. This will reach my concrete learners. I believe this lab also demonstrates when it is necessary to use technology by comparing the equations they derived to the one the calculator derived.