Resource Library

A song to reflect on the excitement of discovering the discipline of statistics. The song is a parody of "walking in Memphis," the 1991 hit of Grammy-winning artist Marc Cohn. The lyrics were written by Lawrence Mark Lesser of University of Texas at El Paso who first published them in the August 2014 issue of Amstat News. This song could enhance an outreach context, a general celebration of statistics, or serve to overview a statistical literacy or introductory statistics class.

A poem that can be used in discussing how to critique a research study. The poem was written in 2015 by Professor Lawrence Mark Lesser from University of Texas at El Paso.

"Failing the possibility of measuring that which you desire, the lust for measurement may, for example, merely result in your measuring something else - and perhaps forgetting the difference - or in your ignoring some things because they cannot be measured." A quote by British statistician George Udny Yule that can be used in discussing the validity of measurements. The quote is contained on the last page of his famous 1921 British Journal of Psychology paper "The essentials of mental measurement." The quote is commonly paraphrased as "In our lust for measurement, we frequently measure that which we can rather than that which we wish to measure... and forget that there is a difference."

A joke that can be used in distinguishing the difference between the probability mass function (pmf) for discrete variables and the probability density function (pdf) for continuous variables. The idea for the joke came in 2016 from Judah Lesser, an AP Statistics student from El Paso Texas.

A joke to be used in discussing the assumption of normality in using the t-distribution for inference. The Joke was written in 2016 by Judah Lesser an AP statistics student from El Paso, Texas.

This webpage provides an active learning lesson for linear regression. Resources include an in-class student activity sheet for two different levels of classes (Algebra I and Junior), a PowerPoint showing faces of famous people, and sheet with updated (to the end of current year) actual ages of the celebrities.

A poem for teaching about the Cramer-Rao lower bound on variance of estimators. The poem was written by Ming-Lun Ho, Chabot College. It won third place in the non-song category of the 2015 A-Mu-Sing competition.

A joke for use in discussing measures of central tendency. The joke was written by Jackie Bryce Miller, University of Michigan and won third place in the 2015 A-Mu-Sing competition.

A Limerick by Christine Kohnen (University of Richmond) and Eric S. van Gyzen (Dell) that can be used in teaching about the uses of the t-distribution in estimation and testing. The limerick was awarded first place in the non song category of the 2015 A-Mu-sing competition.

A video to dispel myths about Statistics and excite students early in a course. The lyrics and video were created by Scott Crawford from the University of Wyoming. The music is from the 2000 song "Where Are You, Christmas? " written by James Horner and Will Jennings for the movie "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". The video received an honorable mention in the video category of the 2013 CAUSE A-Mu-sing competition. Free for non-profit use in classroom and course website applications.