The unit plan I am authoring for Kenan includes background information about climate change, specifically from professionals researching and using climate information; the use of statistics in climate science and some reasons why climate statistics and interpretation are sometimes considered controversial in the lay community; an understanding of line of best fit and the concept of regression; hand calculations of the value of r2 as a measurement of the relationship between values in a data set; use of statistical freeware such as R; using public databases to cull relevant climate data; correctly extrapolating and interpolating values on a graph using r2.
My summer internship requires that I work with two statisticians from SAMSI to teach an aspect of climate change in the classroom and how statisticians make decisions using data. My kids get distracted by outliers and incongruent examples. I hope to use regression to demonstrate how to better understand the meaning of datasets.
This sounds so great! I have a personal interest in climate change and the controversy contained therein! (My brother and I sit on opposing sides of the fence, and it becomes a heated debate often when we meet!) It is so hard to guide students to an understanding of how data can be manipulated and misconstrued… and bias! A friend of mine does an activity where students are given data from two different sources… one for / one against (Specifically on SHARKS fishing) and the students do a debate based on their information. During the debate the students begin to realize that they have some of the “same” evidence, but it’s all in the way it’s being presented! Thanks for sharing … can’t wait to see your unit in action!
Sounds like your Fellowship is giving you some good ideas to incorporate into your classroom. Great start.
Amneris