Numbers and Social Problems: Improving Quantitative Literacy

Robert A. Grant II

This unit discusses the need for students to be able to read and create tables and graphs. There is a vast amount of background knowledge collected from credible sources which include the seminar we attended on Numbers and Social Problems. I introduce this difficult concept using the Dr. Goldberger’s research on the cure of Pellagra. Students pull out variables from his experiment and use them to create data tables and graphs. This unit uses a lot of collaboration with classmates. The collaboration is to ensure that every student is heard and understands the material. Technology is used often throughout the lesson to engage students and extend them into higher level thinking. Interactive tools help give the students fantastic visuals that would be impossible to show in a paper/pencil classroom. This unit is heavily based in the Next Generation Science Standards. It covers practices 2, 4, 5 and 8. It also covers the cross-cutting concepts of patterns, cause and effect, and scale, proportion, and quantity. This unit causes students to think at a higher level and fills a need in quantitative literacy that the current lessons have failed to achieve.