Names ______Date ______Period _____

Penny Wars Graphing Activity

Introduction

The Zone decided to have a friendly competition among the homerooms to raise some money for charity. Instead of just having students bring in cash and checks, the teachers decided to try Penny Wars. In Penny Wars, each homeroom teacher is given a jar with their name on it for students to place money in. Pennies count as +1 point each. Nickels count as -5 points each. Dimes count as -10 points each. Quarters count as -25 points each. In order to give themselves the highest possible total, students put pennies in their own homeroom jar (positive points) and put nickels, dimes, and quarters (negative points) in the other homeroom jars. The winner of the competition is the homeroom with the highest point total (not the highest dollar value) at the end. The results from each homeroom’s jars can be seen in the data table below.

Results

Results of Penny Wars Broken Down by Teacher and Type of Coin

Teacher / Pennies / Nickels / Dimes / Quarters / Total $ Value of Money Collected* / Penny Wars Point Total**
Heimel / 3572 / 27 / 123 / 75
Laub / 3621 / 26 / 47 / 90
Legutko / 2938 / 81 / 89 / 42
Shingler / 3702 / 68 / 72 / 67
TOTAL
Average per Teacher***

Calculations

*Total $ Value of Money Collected = P($0.01) + N($0.05) + D($0.10) + Q($0.25)
Where P= number of pennies, N= number of nickels, D= number of dimes, and Q= number of quarters
**Penny Wars Point Total = P – [N(5) + D(10) + Q(25)]
Where P= number of pennies, N= number of nickels, D= number of dimes, and Q= number of quarters
***Average per Teacher = TOTAL / number of teachers

v  Using the data from the data table above, make the graphs described below in the appropriate grid on the following pages.

§  Graph 1 = Bar graph comparing the average number of each kind of coin collected by the team.

§  Graph 2 = Bar graph that shows the Total $ Value of Money Collected by each teacher and the average.

§  Graph 3 = Bar graph that shows the Penny War Point Total for each teacher and the average.

Graph 1

Graph 2

Graph 3

Conclusion Questions

1.  Why was it more appropriate to make bar graphs instead of line graphs to represent this data? ______

2.  How many of the teachers on the team collected more total money than the average? ______

3.  Rank the teachers in order (from most to least) in terms of the number of pennies they collected.

  1. ______
  2. ______
  3. ______
  4. ______

4.  Rank the teachers in order (from highest to lowest) in terms of their penny wars point totals.

  1. ______
  2. ______
  3. ______
  4. ______

5.  What conclusions can you draw about the total number of pennies collected by each teacher and how it impacts their overall finishing place in the competition? Explain your response. ______