33 Places To Find Juicy Data

As a teacher of gifted students, I know that abstract drill and kill only works for so long. I’ve got to get my students working with math in a more interesting context. Nothing brings a math problem alive like putting it into a real world context. Here are 33 fantastic places to grab data for your students to practice with (apologies for the US-specific data, want to put together a companion piece for your country? I’d love to post it here or link to your post!):

Nutrition Information

  1. Starbucks (Drinks or Food)
  2. McDonald’s
  3. Pizza Hut (pdf)
  4. Taco Bell
  5. Caffeine Per Drink – includes making-of information behind this infographic

Shopping

  1. IKEA – Furniture
  2. Best Buy – Electronics
  3. Home Depot – Home Goods
  4. Guitar Center – Musical Instruments
  5. Car Max – Used Cars

Population Data

  1. UN Cyber School Bus – world information database for students
  2. Country Population Data
  3. US States’ Population (by population)
  4. US Population Map – people per square mile
  5. US Economic Reports – drill down by state, county, city (lots to dig through here!)
  6. US Census Fun Facts – a kid (& teacher) friendly list of census information by state

Sports Stats

  1. Baseball
  2. Basketball
  3. Football
  4. Hockey
  5. NCAA statistics

Employment, Education, Economy

  1. Consumer Price Index – measures average price of consumer goods
  2. Employment/Education information
  3. More Education Means More Money

Top Sellers

  1. Alltime Box Office Records
  2. Top Selling Records
  3. Top Selling Recording Artists
  4. Top Selling Children’s Books

Natural Events

  1. Latest Earthquakes (magnitude and location)
  2. Significant Earthquakes (by year)
  3. Real Time Water Data In The US
  4. Tides and Currents (US Ports)
  5. Forest Fire Data

Sign Up For Updates

Receive the free PDF "Improve Your Gifted Classroom: 7 Ways In 7 Days."

View Comments to “33 Places To Find Juicy Data”

  1. Fred Delventhal  25 May 2010 at 4:29 am #

    I would add Google Squared http://www.google.com/squared The results of your search can be exported to a spreadsheet for manipulation and comparison. Also Wolfram Alpha finds and compares data sets. http://www.wolframalpha.com/ I finally had a better understand of the power behind Wolfram Alpha after watching this video http://www.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introduc...

  2. Ian Byrd 3 June 2010 at 7:05 pm #

    Thanks for the additional resources. I've played with Wolfram Alpha a bit,
    but haven't delved much into Google Squared.

  3. Ian Byrd 3 June 2010 at 11:05 pm #

    Thanks for the additional resources. I've played with Wolfram Alpha a bit,
    but haven't delved much into Google Squared.


Trackbacks/Pingbacks.

  1. Math Teachers at Play #25: Sharing « Point of Inflection - 16. Apr, 2010

    [...] Byrd presents 33 Places To Find Juicy Data posted at Byrdseed Gifted [...]

Leave a Reply

blog comments powered by Disqus