Resource Library

The Student Dust Counter is an instrument aboard the NASA New Horizons mission to Pluto, launched in 2006. As it travels to Pluto and beyond, SDC will provide information on the dust that strikes the spacecraft during its 14-year journey across the solar system. These observations will advance human understanding of the origin and evolution of our own solar system, as well as help scientists study planet formation in dust disks around other stars. 

In this lesson, students learn the concepts of averages, standard deviation from the mean, and error analysis. Students explore the concept of standard deviation from the mean before using the Student Dust Counter data to determine the issues associated with taking data, including error and noise. Questions are deliberately open-ended to encourage exploration.

 The Integrated Medical Model (IMM) is a Monte Carlo simulation-based tool designed to quantify the probability of the medical risks and potential consequences that astronauts could experience during a mission. In this activity, students will use Monte Carlo methods with a TI-Nspire™ to simulate and predict probabilities of CO2 headaches aboard the ISS. 

NASA's Math and Science @ Work project provides challenging supplemental problems for students in advanced science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM classes including Physics, Calculus, Biology, Chemistry and Statistics, along with problems for advanced courses in U.S. History and Human Geography.

The Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory allows astronauts an atmosphere resembling zero gravity (weightlessness) in order to train for missions involving spacewalks. In this activity, students will evaluate pressures experienced by astronauts and scuba divers who assist them while training in the NBL.  This lesson addresses correlation, regression, residuals, inerpreting graphs, and making predictions.

NASA's Math and Science @ Work project provides challenging supplemental problems for students in advanced science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM classes including Physics, Calculus, Biology, Chemistry and Statistics, along with problems for advanced courses in U.S. History and Human Geography.

Math and Science @ Work presents an activity for high school AP Statistics students. In this activity, students will look at data from an uncalibrated radar and a calibrated radar and determine how statistically significant the error is between the two different data sets.

NASA's Math and Science @ Work project provides challenging supplemental problems for students in advanced science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM classes including Physics, Calculus, Biology, Chemistry and Statistics, along with problems for advanced courses in U.S. History and Human Geography.

The song may be used to teach the importance of a good graphical display in presenting statistical data. May be sung to the tune of "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" (Eddie Schwartz, Pat Benatar, 1980). An earlier version appeared in Spring 2011 issue of Teaching Statistics. Lyrics by Lawrence Lesser, University of Texas at El Paso. version here introduced at the 2013 U.S. Conference On Teaching Statistics.

A joke that can be used when teaching six sigma process control ideas or chi-squared goodness-of-fit tests. The joke was written in 2013.

If you think that statistics has nothing to say about what you do or how you could do it better, then you are either wrong or in need of a more interesting job. is a quote by Swiss Statistician Professor Stephen John Senn (1953 - ). The quote is from his 2003 book "Dicing with Death: Chance, Risk, and Health" published by Cambridge University Press.

Although numbers don't lie, it's rather annoying that they don't tell us everything we need to know. Maybe it's because 99% of all statistics only tell us 49% of the story. is a quote by American investment author Ron DeLegge II (1971 - ). The quote appears in his book "Gents With No Cents" published in 2011 by Half Full Publishing Group.

...statisticians are the new sexy vampires, only even more pasty. A quote by American playwright, columnist, and humorist Paul M. Rudnick (1957 - ) from his November 19, 2012 essay "A Date with Nate" in "The New Yorker". The essay arose after the correct prediction of the winner of the presidential race in all 50 states in 2012 by statistician Nate Silver

A joke to use when teaching about choices of binary response data models like the Logistic or Probit models by University of Texas at El Paso professor of Mathematical Sciences, Lawrence Mark Lesser (1964-).