Going for Gold

 

Here are the top ten nations in the table of medal winners for the 2016 Olympic Games:

 

Position	Flag	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1		United States	46	37	38	121
2		Great Britain	27	23	17	67
3		China	26	18	26	70
4		Russia	19	17	20	56
5		Germany	17	10	15	42
6		Japan	12	8	21	41
7		France	10	18	14	42
8		South Korea	9	3	9	21
9		Italy	8	12	8	28
10		Australia	8	11	10	29

Is your own nation in the list?

If not find the data on the internet and compare it with the table.

How do you think the positions have been decided?

Could the results be presented differently to give another nation the top place?

How would this affect other results in the table?

Why do this problem?

This problem is intended to encourage children to develop their skills in data analysis, and to be critical of the way in which data are presented to them.

Possible approach

Present the children with the table to look at and invite them to tell you about what it shows. Explain where it comes from and why it might have been made. Encourage the children to look at the variation in the numbers of medals of different types or the totals or both.

Key questions

How are the nations ordered?
Are there nations that have the same numbers of gold medals? Of silver medals? Of bronze medals?
Are they next to each other in the table? Why do you think this is so?
Do you think the system for ordering the nations is fair? Why?

Possible extension

Encourage the children to think creatively about scoring systems such as 3 points for a gold, 2 for a silver and 1 for a bronze, and investigate the impact this would have on the order.

Further investigations might help the children to offer each nation advice about the sports they should focus on to maximise their position in the table. They would need to find and examine further data to do this.

Can they work out a system that is 'fair' but puts their favourite nation at the top?

It might be interesting to consider other factors that affect perception of performance at the Olympics, such as population and wealth - see this Plus article for further discussion.

Possible support

Encourage children to tell you and each other about the meaning of the data in the table. You could begin by asking straightforward questions such as:

How many gold medals does China have?
Which country is top of the table?
Once they have a good idea of the meaning of the data, they may be able to go on to consider the main task.