The CAUSE Cartoon Caption Contest for February is now taking entries
The Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education is happy to
announce our ninth Cartoon Caption Contest. Each month a cartoon, drawn by British
cartoonist John Landers, will be posted for you and your students to suggest statistical
captions. We are especially hoping that instructors will see this as a fun way for their
students to get involved in thinking about statistical ideas. (note the cartoons are post
on the 2nd day of each month)
The next cartoon and the entry rules for the contest ending February 1 are at
https://www.causeweb.org/cause/caption-contest/february/2017/submissions
The best captions will be posted on CAUSEweb and the winner(s) will receive their choice
of a coffee mug or t-shirt imprinted with the cartoon or free registration to eCOTS 2018.
Enjoy.
January Results: Due to the holidays we had just 11 submissions for the January caption
contest that featured a cartoon showing a line getting on an elevator including 5 people,
2 mice, two ducks, and a goat – with a directory showing that Simpson’s Lab is on the 2nd
floor and the other floors have clinics, labs, and dental offices. The January caption
contest was won by (now three-time winner) Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El
Paso. Larry’s caption “The Elevator Paradox has its ups and downs,” was selected for its
potential use in a probability course to foster a discussion about the elevator paradox as
well as other elevator related probability problems. Two honorable mentions that rose to
the top of the judging included “Dr. Peterson was used to long lines at the elevator, but
this was no normal distribution,” written by Robert Garrett a student at Miami University
and “Please hit 3 and 5. Those are Simpson's pair-a-ducks, and tell Hansen he'd
better use stratified sampling!” written by an anonymous author. The cartoon may be well
suited to discussing the idea of stratification into two groups such as people vs animals
or animals with teeth vs those without (the ducks).
Thanks to everyone who submitted a caption and congratulations to all of our Winner