Resource Library

This article describes a dataset containing energy use data for single-family homes and monthly weather data in the Boston area over a seven year period. The data can help illustrate concepts like central tendency, dispersion, time series analysis, correlation, simple and multiple regression, and variable transformations. Key Words: measurement; forecasting.

This activity uses Microsoft Excel to estimate the population variance of grouped data two ways: the variance within a group and the variance between groups. This activity accompanies Section 7.3 of Data Matters.

This site provides applets, lessons, and objectives for learning about conditional probability. The applet activity introduces multiple-outcomes events and computing probabilities.

This site provides numerous datasets for graphical display topics including linear, exponential, logistic, power rule, periodic, and other bivariate scatterplots, histograms, and other univariate data. Each data set is accompanied with a description, file format options, and a sample graph.

This is a collection of activities as Java applets that can be used to explore probability and statistics. Each activity is supplemented with background information, activity instructions, and a curriculum for the activity.

This worksheet activity teaches random sampling and theoretical probabilities by simulating the effects of randomly assigning newborn babies to their mothers. Students will perform trials and keep track of results, then use the information to deduce properties of random sampling. The relation website is an applet that simulates the process automatically.

This applet simulates randomly assigning newborn babies to families and measures the number of matches, or instances when a baby is assigned to its real family. The applet keeps track of each trial and records the information in a histogram. The idea is to teach theoretical values associated with random sampling. The relation website is a worksheet activity to accompany the applet.

An independent, nonpartisan resource on trends in American public opinion. Gives examples of recent polls, margins of error, questions asked, and sample sizes.

This Flash applet provides an introduction to simple linear regression for introductory statistics students. It combines a brief narrated animation with an interactive scatterplot function. Students are able to place points on the scatterplot by clicking with a mouse or typing X-Y coordinates. Students use these points to learn about the best fit line by placing a guess on the plot and comparing it with the least squares line. Students also learn about the value of the correlation coefficent and points that would be considered outliers. Students may also specify a value of x (within the range of the data) and obtain the resulting predicted value.

This is a virtual spinner applet, which allows you to change spinner regions and the number of spins. It records the results and displays the data in a histogram.