Water Use and Conservation: Data Analysis for Central Tendency
How do engineers analyze water in large amounts so they can properly design conservation systems?Copyright 2019 Pixabay, Public Domain, Pexels https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-of-splashing-water-247765/
Students collect a large set of data (approximately 60 sets) of individual student’s water use and learn how to use spreadsheets to graph the data and find mean, median, mode, and range. They compared their findings to the national average of water use per person per day and use it to evaluate how much water a municipality would need in the event of a recovery from a water shutdown. This analysis activity introduces students to the concept of central tendencies and how to use spreadsheets to find them.
All branches of engineering require acquiring and analyzing data—usually large sets of data. Measurements of central tendency (mean, median, mode, and range) are commonly used to evaluate these data sets. Environmental engineers rely on similar data sets to measure the amount of resources available or needed, and to evaluate what kind of remediation solution a municipality must take to solve a shortage of water or other event.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Analyze data for measurements of central tendencies: mean, median, and mode.
- Make decisions based on data analysis.