Predicting a Person's Height

Predicting a Person's Height

Query

Is there a mathematical relationship between a person's height and the length of his femur?

Materials

metric ruler, meter stick, string, calculator

Activity

It is best that each assigned group has at least six members. Actually, the more data that is available improves the reliability of any generated equation. Instruct students to present a table that lists the femur length and height of each group member. There are other bones that one may wish to include for measurement purposes. Using the available data, it is up to each group to generate an equation that can be used to predict the height of a person given a particular femur length. This may involve a group using data from other students thereby making the equation more reliable. This activity can work for comparing a person's height with the circumference of his cranium as well. Students can present a similar table for this and make a decision as to which equation is more reliable and why.