Resource Library

This poem, written in July 2024 by Lawrence M. Lesser of The University of Texas at El Paso, is in the form of a bimodal distribution, reflected in the poem’s real-world context.  Before showing the poem, a teacher could first ask students to reflect on what they would expect a histogram of ages of pedestrians killed (or severely injured) to have and why (chances are some of their suggested rationale will  be captured in the poem!).

Afterwards, students wanting to examine or discuss real-world evidence of such a distribution may look for data on their own, or be shown section 1.1.3 of 

Roe, M., Shin, H., Ukkusuri, S., Blatt, A., Majka, K. et al. (2010), “The New York City Pedestrian Safety Study and Action Plan Technical Supplement,” New York City Department of Transportation. http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/nyc_ped_safety_study_action_plan_technical_supplement.pdf . 

This visual poem may also inspire students to write their own short statistics poem using (and connecting to) a data set with a differently shaped distribution.

A cartoon that can be used to help start a class conversation about how good visualizations are important for understanding and communicating data analyses. The cartoon was used in the September 2021 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Ciaran Evans from Wake Forest University. 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 cartoon that can be used to highlight various features of the times series plots shown such as the seasonal trends perhaps signaling the oncoming storm in the cartoon. The cartoon was used in the July 2021 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso. 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 cartoon that provides a clever way to introduce the statistical field of sabermetrics.  The cartoon was used in the May 2020 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Larry Lesser from the The University of Texas at El Paso. 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 humorous cartoon to initiate a conversation about time series plots. The cartoon was drawn by American cartoonist Jon Carter in 2017.

A humorous cartoon to initiate a conversation about interpreting a time series plot (e.g. discussing trend versus random components). The cartoon was drawn by American cartoonist Jon Carter in 2014.

A humorous cartoon by American cartoonist Jon Carter in 2018 which may be used for in-class discussions about interpreting time series plots. The drawing indicates confusion about what each axes represents, since the plot itself indicates the  x-axes labels time, but the axes itself says "customer intelligence"  and there is no scale on either axesThe cartoon is free to use in non-profit educational settings.

A song describing how sample means will follow the normal curve regardless of how skewed the population histogram is, provided n is very large.  The lyrics were written by Dennis Pearl and Peter Sprangers, both then at The Ohio State University.  The audio recording was produced by The University of Texas at El Paso student Nicolas Acedo who also performed the vocals

A song to aid in teaching about time series plots and the three principal things to look for in them: long term trends, seasonal or other cyclic patterns, and random fluctuations. The song may to sung to the tune of "You've Got a Friend" by Carole King from her 1971 Tapestry album (and later popularized by James Taylor). The lyrics to the parody were written in 2017 by Dennis K Pearl from Penn State University and Lawrence M Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso. The audio was produced by Nicolas Acedo with vocals by Erika Araujo, both students in the Commercial Music Program at The University of Texas at El Paso.

A cartoon suitable for use in teaching about various graphic displays. The cartoon is number 688 (January, 2010) from the webcomic series at xkcd.com created by Randall Munroe. Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites under a creative commons attribution-non-commercial 2.5 license.