Count the Cars
Find out what colour of car your street likes best.
1 week🔢 Math🔬 Science🌍 Social Studies
What you need
- paper
- a pencil
- somewhere safe to watch from
Nothing to buy and nothing to print — if you do not have one of these, swap it for whatever you do have.
The steps
Day 1
Decide the colours
Pick four or five colours to count. Everything else goes in 'other'.
📋 Make a list
Day 2
Ten minutes of tallies
Watch for ten minutes and make a tally mark for each car.
📊 Make a chart or table
Say this: “Four lines then a gate across them. That is five.”
Day 3
Do it again
Same street, same ten minutes, different day. Do the numbers match?
📊 Make a chart or table
Day 4
Make it a graph
Turn the tallies into a block graph, one square per car.
📊 Make a chart or table
Day 5
Answer the question
Which colour won? Was it the same on both days? Write the answer.
✍️ Write a few sentences
How to score it
You score this, not us. Pick the description that actually matches what they did.
Tallying
- 1. Missed cars
- 2. Tallied most
- 3. Tallied accurately
- 4. Tallied accurately in fives
Graphing
- 1. No graph
- 2. Graph with gaps
- 3. Accurate graph
- 4. Accurate graph with labels
Concluding
- 1. No answer
- 2. Named a winner
- 3. Named a winner from the graph
- 4. Named a winner and noticed the two days differed
What goes in the portfolio
A tally chart and a block graph of car colours, with the answer written underneath.