Mathematical Topics: Students will use real world data to explore an important issue in our society today. Students analyze the data using scatterplots, least squares regression line, correlation coefficients, and residual plots.

Mathematical Thinking: In this activity, students explore the connection between numerical, algebraic and graphical representations of data. In the extension, the students also examine influential observations and connect their analysis with the occupational groups.

Technology: The students will learn how to sort data, create scatterplots with the chart wizard, use the function wizard to calculate the correlation coefficient, use the draw tools to add an estimated line to a scatterplot, add a trendline to a graph, and create formulas to calculate predicted values and residuals.

The following graph illustrates the relationship between smoking and lung cancer that will be explored in this activity.