By Sandra Madden, University of Massachusetts - Amherst Have you ever gone looking for a highly productive and foolproof statistical reasoning task? In 2006, I designed a statistical sampling task for use in a professional development project. The intention was to showcase important statistical ideas, encourage conjecture and statistical argument, and illustrate the … [Read more...] about A Sampling Activity to Anchor Big Statistical Ideas
Comparative Boxplots
Lesson Plan: How Long Are the Words in the Gettysburg Address?
In this lesson by Gary Kader, Christine Franklin, Tim Jacobbe, and Kaycie Maddox, each student tries two methods for selecting a sample from the population of words in the Gettysburg Address: self-selection and simple random sampling. Then, as a class, students construct dotplots and calculate numerical summaries to show how sample means vary from sample to sample. Using … [Read more...] about Lesson Plan: How Long Are the Words in the Gettysburg Address?
Lesson Plan: Are Female Hurricanes Deadlier Than Male Hurricanes?
By Mary Richardson (Grades 6-8, 9-12+) Originally published in June of 2014, this lesson uses a data set partially discussed in the article "Female Hurricanes Are Deadlier Than Male Hurricanes," written by Kiju Junga, Sharon Shavitta, Madhu Viswanathana, and Joseph M. Hilbed. The data set contains archival data on actual fatalities caused by hurricanes in the United States … [Read more...] about Lesson Plan: Are Female Hurricanes Deadlier Than Male Hurricanes?
Lesson Plan: Bubble Trouble!
By Peter Banwarth (Grades 6-12+) Originally published in May 2014, this lesson has the following two goals: In this lesson, students will determine if the size of a bubble blown in water is affected by different additions to the water. Students will design an activity to explore this and have fun blowing bubbles. They will use numeric summaries—including the mean and … [Read more...] about Lesson Plan: Bubble Trouble!