A group of friends played a game of basketball. They wrote how many points they each scored as a stem and leaf plot, like this:
The stem is the Tens digit of each score.
The leaf is the Ones digit of each score.
Based on our stem-leaf plot, these are the scores of the players:
2, 3, 5, 10, 11, 11, 14, 20, 20, 21, 22, 22
How did we get these numbers?
Let's look at one of them, 21.
21 is a combination of 2 in the Stem and 1 in the Leaf.
Stem-leaf plots let you list numbers without having to repeat the Tens digits as much.
It's a way to compress, or shrink, your data.
Stem-and-leaf plots also let us see how the data is spread out.
We can quickly see that 5 players scored 20 or higher.
Here's another stem-leaf plot:
Did you notice anything different?
Yes, the Stem column has 2 digits.
You still just add the stem to the leaf to get the individual values.
The numbers in the first row are 111, 111, 112, and 112.
In the second row, the numbers are 120, 120, 123, 124, and 124.
Lastly, the third row numbers are 131, 133, 136, and 137.
This stem-leaf plot shows library visitors in the last 7 days:
How many visitors did the library have this week?
Let's see what the numbers are.
Now, we add them together.
The total number of visitors was 588.
Great job learning. Now, if you see a stem-leaf plot, you know what it means.
Next, complete the practice. It'll help you remember for longer.