For the next two weeks, we’re going to focus on using numbers in history. You do not need any higher-level math skills to understand these lessons. The following worksheet guides you through some initial introductory exercises. Please answer all questions in complete sentences.
A basic understanding of statistics is fundamental to operating in today’s world. When a news report tells you that eating cheese will increase your risk of death by 25%, will you still eat that sandwich? It depends on what that 25% increase is, as you’ll see. To start, we need to look at a couple of very basic examples of statistics.
At the end of this lesson you will be able to:
Demonstrate an understanding of mean, median, and mode.
Demonstrate an understanding of linear and logarithmic scales.
Demonstrate an understanding of the Monty Hall statistics problem.
Successfully navigate gapminder.org to analyze historical data.
Accurately answer questions in complete sentences.
Upload a text document with the answers to the appropriate Assignment Submission Folder on D2L.
Go to http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/SimpleMontyHall/
Play the game. Do you understand why you should always switch?
If not, go to http://webs.wofford.edu/bednarjt/monty/montyhall.html for an explanation.
Go to http://www.gapminder.org
A linear scale is one that goes up by the same number. 1,2,3,4 or 10,20,30. The scale is based on adding a number.
A log scale is one that increases by a multiplying factor. So 1, 10, 100, 1000, 10,000. The scale is based on multiplication.
Sometimes information is presented using a linear scale. A person’s age on history charts is almost always in a linear scale.
Sometimes information is presented using a log scale, especially when something starts really small but gets really big quickly. For example, with epidemics, the number of deaths starts very small but soon increases dramatically.
Let’s explore these differences.
To select, check the box next to the country (1).
Then, move the “Deselect” slider all the way to the left to fade out the rest of the countries. (2)
Press play and watch the life expectancy (a linear scale) and the income per person (a logarithmic scale) progress over time.
Questions:
Set both “Life expectancy, years” and “Income per person” to log scales.
In the screen shot below I’ve chosen “poverty” for the X axis (horizontal or side-to-side line).
Questions:
There are three different meanings for the word “average.”
For a text definition of these terms, see http://www.mun.ca/educ/ed4361/virtual_academy/campus_a/losinskim/mean,median,mode.html
For video explanation, see https://www.khanacademy.org/math/probability/data-distributions-a1/summarizing-center-distributions/v/mean-median-and-mode
Questions: Let’s say a large village had 25 people die in a single year. Below is the age of each deceased villager.
The first icon (green) is an excel file.
The second icon (magnifying glass) opens it in google docs on the web.
The third icon (red dot) shows you the data in a gapminder graph.
Select a data set and open it.
Question:
You will receive one point for each question successfully answered.
A successful answer will be stated in a complete sentence and include accurate answers (where calculations are appropriate) or robust explanation of your ideas.