To find the median number of pairs of shoes owned by the 6th graders surveyed by Michael, we first need to arrange the data in ascending order:
1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7
Since there are 9 total data points, the median will be the middle data point when the data is arranged in ascending order. In this case, the middle data point is the 5th data point, which is 2 pairs of shoes.
Therefore, the median number of pairs of shoes owned by the 6th graders Michael surveyed is 2 pairs of shoes.