Resource Library

This page contains information about the mass, mean temperature, length of day, rotation period, etc. for the planets of our solar system.

This article describes an interactive activity illustrating sampling distributions for means, properties of confidence intervals, properties of hypothesis testing, confidence intervals for means, and hypothesis tests for means. Students generate and analyze data and through simulation explore these concepts. The activity is completed in three parts. The three parts of the activity can be used in sequence or they can be used individually as "stand alone" activities. This allows the educator flexibility in utilizing the activity. Part I illustrates the sampling distribution of the sample mean. Part II illustrates confidence intervals for the population mean. Part III illustrates hypothesis tests for the population mean. This activity is appropriate for use in an introductory college or high school AP statistics course. Key words: sampling distribution of a sample mean, confidence interval for a mean, hypothesis test on a mean, simulation, random rectangles

This activity provides students with 24 histograms representing distributions with differing shapes and characteristics. By sorting the histograms into piles that seem to go together, and by describing those piles, students develop awareness of the different versions of particular shapes (e.g., different types of skewed distributions, or different types of normal distributions), that not all histograms are easy to classify, that there is a difference between models (normal, uniform) and characteristics (skewness, symmetry, etc.). Key words: Histogram, shape, normal, uniform, skewed, symmetric, bimodal

This article describes an interactive activity illustrating general properties of hypothesis testing and hypothesis tests for proportions. Students generate, collect, and analyze data. Through simulation, students explore hypothesis testing concepts. Concepts illustrated are: interpretation of p-values, type I error rate, type II error rate, power, and the relationship between type I and type II error rates and power. This activity is appropriate for use in an introductory college or high school statistics course. Key words: hypothesis test on a proportion, type I and II errors, power, p-values, simulation

This activity leads students to appreciate the usefulness of simulations for approximating probabilities. It also provides them with experience calculating probabilities based on geometric arguments and using the bivariate normal distribution. We have used it in courses in probability and mathematical statistics, as well as in an introductory statistics course at the post-calculus level. Students are expected to approximate the solution through simulation before solving it exactly. They are also expected to employ graphical as well as algebraic problem-solving strategies, in addition to their simulation analyses. Finally, students are asked to explain intuitively why it makes sense for the probabilities to change as they do. Key words: simulation, probability, geometry, independence, bivariate normal distribution

This web page contains concise historical information from the Census Bureau in either pdf or Excel format.

This sourcebook is an annual publication of statistics about the criminal justice system, including characteristics of the criminal justice system, attitudes toward crime, types of offenses, characteristics of people arrested, processing of defendants, and people in the correctional system. Datasets come in PDF format or spreadsheet format

This archive contains datasets from articles in the Journal of the American Statistical Association.

These are MIT's epidemiology database pages. Mortality data for the United States from 1890-1997, Japan from 1951-1994, and Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, California, Texas and Florida dating back to the late 1950's are provided.

This short article gives a basic outline of Bloom's Taxonomy and writing learning objectives. It includes a brief description of what types of verbs to use in writing learning objectives and links these verbs to the levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.