“Lies, damned lies and statistics! This interview focuses on the rapidly changing New Zealand property market, but don’t let that put you off! The first half has strong statements about the way companies use (er, “manipulate”) data for their own ends! Why do two companies have different results from the same data? Who controls the […]
Mark Twain made popular the quote, “Lies, damned lies, and statistics” to describe the ability of some people to use the power of numbers to persuade others to believe their viewpoint, particularly to give statistical support for weak arguments. Take this graphic for example: “It is hard to imagine how to construct a less informative […]
Gapminder is a useful tool for students to see trends in data in powerful ways:
The Formula 1 of yachting – the America’s Cup. Outstanding technology where the boats are now sailing over twice the speed of the wind. Also a victory as Oracle came from 1-8 wins behind to beat Team New Zealand 9-8. How did this ‘one of the greatest comebacks in sport’ happen? It was all down […]
The National Security Agency (NSA) recently opened their new data collection centre in Bluffdale, Utah. The new $1.5 billion dollar facility covers nearly one square kilometre just outside Salt Lake City. The low, four-level facility spans 93,000 square metres and requires 3,800 cubic metres of water and 65 megawatts of electricity per day. The electric bill […]
From 1971 to 2000, the world’s land areas were the warmest they have been in at least 1,400 years, according to a new study inNature Geoscience. The massive new study, involving 80 researchers from around the world with the Past Global Changes (PAGES) group, is the first to look at continental temperature changes over two […]
How would you improve this graph? Can you see faults with the data? Are the conclusions correct?
So, growing mathematicians, how would you best graph the data in the previous post? We have 867 for Australia and 57 for France. Can these be fitted easily onto a y-axis (vertically)? Is a column graph (with gaps) better than a histogram (with no gaps)? Or would you use a pie or line graph? As […]
The Olympic Games is a great venue for statistical data (see earlier post). However, there is another easy, online way to get quick data from your class. It is called polleverywhere and is free to use. Click here for more details.
Here is a cool little website for showing students how to create simple Pictograms (Pictographs – or, simply bar graphs with pictures). What I really like about it is that it allows students to use a picture to represent scale (e.g. 1 sheep in the graph = 100 in the data). It also allows sorting […]
