Help with Math Assignment. Questions to compare data on?

[MaryByrne]

I am doing a paper for math where we pick a question and get data to look at for it. We can use online data or conduct a survey. I'm in highschool and it's easiest to survey other students. However I would prefer a question that needs a list of data that I could find online because I am already behind.

I wanted to do it on the number of public help programs (soup kitchens, homeless shelters) vs. number of homeless in area over time in one city to show if the negative assumption that help programs are just enabling and attracting more homeless to move to the city (portland oregon) is true. But - I realized that over time if number of homeless were growing and help programs were growing in response to that need my data could be read different ways. Many people in my class are doing GPA vs Sleep or GPA vs number of advanced classes taken or Gender vs _____. I'd like something more "interesting" than these so something that isn't exactly duh or easily guessed results.

I also wanted to look at parent's salary and child's goal salary. But my friends told me they don't know their parent's salary.

Any suggestions would be helpful. Open to survey ideas (on either highschool students or maybe a survey for Mustachians) and Online data ideas. Has to be something I could do mean median mode and graphs on. Numerical or categorical (like Gender M or F liking Dogs vs Cats)

[matchewed]

One of the largest data sites in the world about people that is easily accessible by English speakers bls.gov/census.gov/...etc. You can essentially find an incredibly huge database of information on a broad range of topics. State, county, and towns may have even more granular and specific sets of data where you can get the individual data points. But those sites are seperate from the US government websites.

[StetsTerhune]

Not sure if this would fit into the scope of the project, but adding an observational component always makes these things more impressive and interesting. Say, correlate how long before the bell each student in your math class shows up with their GPA.  Or how many questions each person asks over a two week period in class. It's fun to keep track of, something to do in class, and it'll seem like you put a ton of work in.