This is my take on the ubiquitous M&Ms counting activity. Each student records the color proportions in a fun-size bag of M&Ms. We pool the class data and run a Chi-Square goodness-of-fit test to determine whether or not the color proportions match those claimed on the manufacturer's website. We consistently find that the proportions do not match. The blue M&Ms, in particular, are underrepresented. This activity also includes a review of the 1-proportion z confidence interval.
Song about the need to show a significant result in order to have a manuscript published. May be sung to the tune of Robert Feldman, Gerald Goldstein and Richard Gottehrer's 1963 song "My Boyfriend's Back," popularized by The Angels. Lyrics by Marc Coram and Matthew Finkelman (December, 2003). This song is part of the "Stanford Statistics Songbook" found at www.bscb.cornell.edu/~hooker/StanfordStatisticsSongbook.pdf Free to use for non-commercial educational purposes. Contact author to use in publications or for commercial purposes. Musical accompaniment realization and vocals are by Joshua Lintz from University of Texas at El Paso.
Outliers is a triangular shaped poem written in 2008 by Jacqueline Shaffer (1980 - ) of California State University, East Bay. The poem focuses on the issue that outliers should not be removed from a data set without a reason.
Probability is a 2 minute 14 second video that can be used in discussing the probability of rare events (e.g. how many consecutive times must a coin land heads before you question whether it is a fair coin?). The video was written, shot, and edited by Sam Rapien in 2007. The music is by Brett Musil and Sam Rapien and the single cast member is Jon Anderson. Mr. Rapien made this video while a graduate student in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.