5 Summary

This unit explored ways of helping students make sense of graphs while becoming familiar with the ideas behind variables. From the start, the students were asked to relate their learning to the real world, bringing in graphs that they found in newspapers, adverts and anywhere else. The underpinning concept throughout was that ‘every graph tells a story’; this idea was reinforced by asking students to first match stories with graphs and then write their own stories for the graphs that they found. Modelling an action hero escape story using graphs provided an engaging and imaginative way to encourage the students to draw their own graphs, linking the variables appropriately so that the story emerged from their graph.