Data Analysis from Algebra to Calculus

Data analysis is an important modeling tool and one whose principles can be developed along with the student's knowledge of functions. In this edition of Everybody's Problems, we will consider increasingly sophisticated approaches to data analysis as we progress through the mathematics curriculum.

This article presents data sets that were collected in the kitchen one summer afternoon and represent two phenomena with which students should be familiar. The first is the relationship between the depth of lemonade in an urn and time, as the urn is being emptied. The second describes the relationship between the temperature of a cup of coffee and the time that the cup has been sitting on the table cooling. The temperature of the room at the time these measurements were taken was approximately 81F.