Eventmath/Lesson plans/White House chart exaggerates economic growth

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Lesson plan overview
Title	White House chart exaggerates economic growth
Assumed knowledge	Students must know how to look at a graph.
Activities	Students will examine the graph, discuss in groups, and then recreate a more accurate version.
Class time	00-15 minutes
Source
"We just learned that President Biden's first year in office was the strongest year for economic growth since 1984". Twitter. 2022-01-27. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= requires |archive-url= (help)
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Activities

The main goal of this activity is to have students examine the Tweet and chart individually, then to discuss in small groups before creating a new, more accurate version of the chart. Then, the instructor can lead a discussion where groups share what they've made and then everyone looks at the follow-up correction from the White House Twitter account: "This is y you proofread."

Initial discussion

Provide each student with a printout of the original Tweet and chart, or share it on a big screen. (It's important to have the full context with the Tweet itself, not just the chart.) Ask students to write down responses to some quick questions, such as:

1. The right side of the chart says "2021 5.7%." What does this mean?
2. Look at the years 2007, 2008, and 2009 on the chart. What do the heights of those bars tell us? What happened in the world that may explain this?
3. Look at the year 2018. How tall is that bar? What if it were *twice as tall*? Where would that be on the chart? Does anything about that look funny to you?
4. Now, consider the written text of the Tweet. What is the main *claim* the White House is making? Does the chart support that claim, or would you need more information to verify it?
5. Finally, consider the title of the chart. Does it match the information actually shown in the chart? Does it match the claim made in the Tweet?

Group activity

Form students into groups of 2 or 3 and give them a couple minutes to discuss their responses to the quick questions above. Then, ask each group to share with the class one insightful comment or question from their group discussion. Eventually, segue the discussion into the next activity by asking, "What *should* this chart have looked like? How could we make it more accurate? And when we do that, how might our impression of the information change?"

Assignments

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Resources

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Background

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Explorations

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