Jeff Ploegstra’s presentation at Iowa Science Teacher’s Section (ISTS) looks at an overview of the “new biology” with examples of projects worked on with students utilizing large data sets requiring inferential statistics, algorithmic thinking, and comfortability interfacing with common databases to make predictions and draw conclusions. Also in the presentation are example exercises that could be used to introduce statistical concepts at increasing levels of difficulty, starting with the idea of modeling genetic drift with a “gene pool” of beads. This tactile system is readily adaptable to consider a host of questions about allele frequency, population size, strength of selective pressures, etc. Finally some examples of randomization-based inference are presented.
