Resource Library

A poem written in 2019 by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso to discuss the normal distribution and its percentiles.  Students could first be shown a copy of the National Center for Health Statistics growth chart graph paper so they will appreciate the details of the poem. And after reading or hearing the poem, students could verify the detail that the 40th and 60th percentiles are half a standard deviation apart. The poem is part of a collection of 8 poems published with commentary in the January 2020 issue of Journal of Humanistic Mathematics.

A poem written in 2019 by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso to discuss the simplest case of line of fit where the slope and correlation coefficients each have a value of 0.  The poem is part of a collection of 8 poems published with commentary in the January 2020 issue of Journal of Humanistic Mathematics.

A poem written in 2019 by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso.   The poem can be a vehicle to discuss the terms and language and is part of a collection of 8 poems published with commentary in the January 2020 issue of Journal of Humanistic Mathematics.

This pie chart was created by Lawrence Lesser of The University of Texas at El Paso to illustrate how a pie chart can display results of a (qualitative) survey question while intriguing students with (mostly, unexpected) connections between probability/statistics and the number π.

A joke to use in discussing the meaning of the slope in a linear trend.  The joke was written in May 2019 by Larry Lesser, The University of Texas at El Paso, and Dennis Pearl, Penn State University.

A fun song about the average by American humorist and singer-songwriter Carla Ulbrich. The song was a finalist in the novelty category of the 2018 USA Songwriting Competition.  The song is also available at www.theacousticguitarproject.com/artist/carla-ulbrich/ and more about the singer can be found at her website at www.carlau.com. For classroom use, you might ask which lines in "Totally Average Woman" refer to ways in which the woman in the song is at the mean, and which refer to ways in which she is at the median. Permission from singer is for free use for teaching in classroom and course websites with attribution. Commercial users must contact the copyright holder.

"By definition all scientists are data scientists. In my opinion, they are half hacker, half analyst, they use data to build products and find insights. It’s Columbus meet Columbo - starry eyed explorers and skeptical detectives," is a quote by Romanian American Data Scientist Monica Rogati. The quote is from an interview published in Forbes magazine on November 27, 2011.

A cartoon that can be helpful in introducing time series plots and their interpretation.The cartoon was used in the December 2018 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Greg Baugher from Mercer University, Penfield College. 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 cartoon that can help in discussing how context matters in thinking about trend and "Seasonal" patterns in time series.The cartoon was used in the July 2018 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Karsten Luebke from FOM University in Germany. The cartoon was drawnby British cartoonist John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea by Dennis Pearl from Penn State University.

A cartoon to start a discussion on the importance of appropriate axis labels. The cartoon was used in the September, 2017 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was submitted by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso. The cartoon was drawn by British cartoonist John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea by Dennis Pearl from Penn State University. Another caption noticed the lack of any scale on the charts read simply "Label your axes!" and was submitted by Kyle Falbo of the College of the Redwoods.  A different use of the cartoon can be made with the caption "Looks like a bad case of Regression to the Mean," which might be used in discussing that topic since the sicker patient in the cartoon is improving more.