Do the “Best” Movies Make More Money?
Do the “Best” movies (the ones that are nominated for an Academy Award for best picture) make the most money? Ten movies are nominated each year. Students compare the votes that the last 20 nominated movies received with their worldwide gross in theaters. Does number of votes for best picture correlate with money earned at theaters?
On January 24, 2012 this year’s Academy Award nominees will be announced. This activity is always timely but will be very exciting during the movie award season in January and February.
There are lots of Common Core Standards addressed here including: 8.SP.1. Construct and interpret scatter plots for bivariate measurement data to investigate patterns of association between two quantities. Describe patterns such as clustering, outliers, positive or negative association, linear association, and nonlinear association.
The extension problem gets into even more standards as students conduct a random sample and compare one sample population with another. If you do not have time for your class to conduct a random sample of non-nominated movies you can use our random sample of 20 movies which are included in the Excel file below. Consider comparing these data sets with a histogram or line plot. You can use our Excel file or http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/
CCSS: 7.SP.2. , 7.SP.3 , 7.SP.4 , 8.SP.1 , S-ID.5 , S-ID.6 , S-IC.1
Best-Pictures.doc Best-Pictures.pdf best_film_data.xls
For members we have solutions.
Best-Pictures-solutions.doc Best-Pictures-solutions.pdf
