Lab 2: 5 of 6

Supplies:

• Fourteen uninterrupted days of newspaper obituaries, in sequence. You can visit your local library to obtain back issues of the newspaper if need be. Often you can also access newspapers online.

Procedure:

1. Monitor the deaths in your local area (county, town, suburb, burrough) over a two-week period by consulting the obituaries in a local newspaper.
2. For each obituary, be sure to note the age and gender of the deceased.
3. Graphically represent the outcome of your study on an X-Y axis chart.

First, create age groups spanning five years (0-4, 5-9, 10-14, etc.). Tally the number of male deaths in each age group and the number of female deaths in each age group. Generate a line graph or bar graph that plots age at time of death on the x-axis and number of deaths on the y-axis. You can use Excel, search the web for a free downloadable graph maker, or you can use the free online graphing tool at http://nces.ed.gov. Create a graph for both males and females.