Resource Library

This cartoon is a meme created by Amy Finnegan from Duke University that received an honorable mention in the 2019 A-mu-sing Contest.  The meme can be used to facilitate class discussions of the difference between an estimate being precise versus being accurate. The dog represents an estimate and the dog bed represents the target (parameter).  When the dog is curled up that would indicate high precision and when the dog is spread out that would represent low precision.  When the dog is in the bed that would indicate accuracy and when the dog is not in the bed, that would indicate lack of accuracy.  (Note: in classes where the language of “reliability” is used instead of “precision,” the meme can be renamed Accuracy vs Reliability and the representations in discussions should then be changed accordingly.)

The ​​​​lyrics and music for this video were written by Greg Crowther, from Everett Community College in Washington and the performance in the video is by Monty Harper and Friends © 2019.  The video took first place in the 2019 A-mu-sing Contest. The lyrics were inspired by the blog post "Reading Clickbait | Stats Chat" and is designed to encourage students to think about whether a study makes sense and is giving believable results.

This cartoon was drawn in the style of Randall Munroe's xkcd web comic by Tubba Babar, a student from University of Toronto Mississauga and won second place in the cartoon category of the 2019 A-mu-sing Contest.  The cartoon can be used in discussing the difference between correlation and causation and the fact that observational relationships can often not distinguish between "A implies B" and "B implies A".  The graphic in the cartoon shows two things rising in prevalence over the same period of time. Thus, it can be used to discuss how many things have changed in the same direction over time, forming a vast number of spurious correlations.

This cartoon was created Jona Gjevori and Ahmed Salam, when they were undergraduate students at the University of Toronto at Mississauga.  The cartoon won an honorable mention in the 2019 A-mu-sing Contest and is designed to humorously facilitate the discussion of issues of generalizing to the population of interest (e.g. in generalizing results in animal students to assume validity for humans without further testing).

This poem, with an accompanying video reading of the poem by Michael A. Posner from Villanova University, took first place in the poetry category of the 2025 A-mu-sing Contest. The poem is designed to teach about word (or term) frequencies in text mining which involves thoughtful construction in defining the actual measurements to use.  Instructors might have students go over this poem and then discuss how to define what words or stems of words should be included or excluded in a different textual application.

A short song describing the benefits of blocking in experimental design by Heather Nichols, a teacher at Oak Creek High School in Wisconsin.  It may be sung to the tune of the traditional Scottish Gaelic tune, "Bunessan." The Randomization Song teaches the benefits of random assignment in an experiment. Randomization is relied upon to reduce bias or control effects of confounding variables and create comparable treatment groups. It also alludes to the use of random sampling and the generalization that allows so an instructor can make a comparison between random assignment and random sampling. The song was part of a pair of songs (along with the Blocking Song) that took the grand prize for the 2025 A-mu-sing Contest.

A short song describing the benefits of blocking in experimental design by Heather Nichols, a teacher at Oak Creek High School in Wisconsin. It teaches students that blocking reduces variability in the response variable by creating groups of similar experimental units to see how they respond differently to the treatments in the experiment.  The song was part of a pair of songs (along with the Randomization Song) that took the grand prize for the 2025 A-mu-sing Contest.

A haiku poem written in 2019 by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso to spark discussion about multivariable thinking and confounding variables, which are a major emphasis of the 2016 GAISE College Report.  The poem is part of a collection of 8 poems published with commentary in the January 2020 issue of Journal of Humanistic Mathematics.

A cartoon that invites conversation about the type of biases that may result from the way a pollster handles the logistics of taking a survey and thus the importance of careful planning.  The cartoon was used in the February 2022 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Don Bell-Souder a student at University of Colorado, Boulder. Two alternative captions with the same basic learning object are “Selection bias is in the eye of the beholder” written by Sarah Arpin and “ACME polling finds that bootstrapping still reflects self-reporting bias.” Written by Rosie Garris who are also both students at University of Colorado, Boulder. The cartoon was drawn by British cartoonist John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea by Dennis Pearl from Penn State University.

A song for discussion of the uses of weighting. In particular, Verse 1 hits the weighted mean (with a nod to Simpson’s paradox), Verse 2 connects with how/why poll data are weighted to help the sample more accurately reflect population characteristics, which can launch a discussion of what we adjust for (probability, sample design, demographics) and how (raking, matching, propensity weighting). This can be supported by examples in GAISE (https://www.amstat.org/docs/default-source/amstat-documents/gaisecollege...) and apps (e.g., https://sites.psu.edu/shinyapps/2018/12/03/weight-adjustment-in-surveys/). Finally, the Bridge touches on weighted regression. Lyrics by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso; may be sung to the tune of the 1981 hit "The Waiting" by Tom Petty.  The song received an honorable mention in the 2023 A-mu-sing competition.  Thanks to UTEP’s Jose Villalobos for the song title and for contributing backing vocals and guitar to Larry’s on the recording.