Scatterplots, correlation, and fitting lines

Week 8: October 13

MATH 317/ELMA 517 ~ Probability and Statistics for Teachers ~ Fall 2003


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Class meeting schedule and topics

Monday, October 13 ~ Scatterplots
Monday, October 20 ~ Midsemester exam
Monday, October 27 ~ Introduction to probability

Homework Assignments

  1. Due Monday, October 20

    Required work

    1. Find, collect, or recycle a dataset containing at least two numeric variables measured on the same subjects. Provide a specific reference, or describe in detail how the data were collected. Construct a scatterplot for the data. Describe how you knew which variable was the response or dependent variable, and which was the explanatory or independent variable. Describe the association you see in the scatterplot between the two variables. What story does the graph tell? Explain.

    2. Find, collect, or recycle a dataset containing at least one numeric variable measured over time. Please be sure that the time values are recorded as individual units that can be represented on a number line. Provide a specific reference, or describe in detail how the data were collected. Construct a timeplot for the variable over time. Describe any patterns or trends you see in the timeplot. What story does the graph tell? Explain.

    3. Play the Guessing Correlations from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (http://www.stat.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/stat100/gc_main.pl?id=iup) game on the Web. Try to get your name into the list of Tom Short's IUP students who have played the game. (Click "New Plots" to get started.)

    Optional work

    • Repeat exercises (a) or (b) above by hand or using technology.
    • Play the Guessing Correlations game enough to reach the top of the standings.

  2. Due Monday, October 27

    Required work

    1. Read Book 1 Section 5 Investigation 11 titled "What Are the Chances?"

    2. Review your notes on Probability from MATH 152


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