Grade 6 · Math · Lesson 25

Collect and Organize Data Sets

A data set is a collection of values you have gathered from a survey, an experiment, or careful observation. Raw data is messy — a long list of answers in the order they came in. Before you can answer questions like "which option was most popular?" or "how many people responded?" you need to organize the data. Two of the most useful tools for this are the tally chart and the frequency table. Each one converts a raw list into a tidy summary that anyone can read at a glance.

What this lesson teaches

1Collect data from a survey or observation and record each response with a tally mark
2Group tally marks in fives so that totals can be counted quickly and accurately
3Organize a raw data list into a frequency table that shows each category and its count
4Check the total of a frequency table by adding all frequencies and matching the data set size

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