A cartoon that can be used for discussions that compare and contrast survey samples versus a census. The cartoon was used in the August 2019 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Jim Alloway from EMSQ Associates. The cartoon was drawn by British cartoonist John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea by Dennis Pearl from Penn State University.
A joke to facilitate discussion of random assignment in an experiment. The joke was written by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso in May, 2020.
A joke to use in presentations about the importance of control and replication in experimentation. The joke was written by Larry Lesser (The University of Texas at El Paso) and Dennis Pearl (Penn State University) in March 2020.
A poem written in 2019 by Sabrina Little, a middle school student at the Mackintosh Academy in Boulder, CO. She entered it into the American Mathematical Society’s Math Poetry Contest contest for Colorado middle school, high school, and undergraduate students in connection with the 2020 Joint Mathematics Meetings in Denver. Sabina’s poem was judged the winner in the category for middle school students. The poem uses imagery which can enhance a lesson on line of fit and outliers. Sabrina Little read her poem at the 2020 Joint Mathematics Meetings (see 2:42 mark of the video posted at http://www.ams.org/programs/students/math-poetry).
A joke to help in discussions of the value of random assignment in experiments and in discussing pedagogical options. The joke was written by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso in February 2020.
A joke to help discuss how random assignment is an unbiased experimental method. The joke was written by Dennis Pearl from Penn State University in February 2020.
A poem written in 2019 by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso to introduce the concept of Latin squares. Be prepared to explain the meaning of the word “Latinx” in case some students don’t recognize it. The poem is part of a collection of 8 poems published with commentary in the January 2020 issue of Journal of Humanistic Mathematics.
A haiku poem written in 2019 by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso to spark discussion about multivariable thinking and confounding variables, which are a major emphasis of the 2016 GAISE College Report. The poem is part of a collection of 8 poems published with commentary in the January 2020 issue of Journal of Humanistic Mathematics.
A poem written in 2019 by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso to discuss systematic sampling. Students should be familiar with the lyric being sampled from (though you could provide it to make sure) and verify that the systematic sample involved sampling every third word and starting with the lyric’s first word. Students could create their own poems with different systematic samples (or different text to sample from). The poem is part of a collection of 8 poems published with commentary in the January 2020 issue of Journal of Humanistic Mathematics.
A joke to start a discussion about how a census tries to get information on the whole population.