The module comes live on Blackboard during the in-class session. Next time around, I will allow more time for a side exercise to emphasize the concept of linear interpolation more explicitly. The calculation provided a good entry to interpolation and proportions and set the stage nicely for Chapter 6 on linear functions. The more vocal students knew about the 25th and 75th percentiles for Q1 and Q3, respectively, but were less confident about calculating them from the data. The students were annoyed that there were three seemingly reasonable ways to calculate the first and third quartiles and that they produced different results in this case.
I had the impression that the students were somewhat taken aback with the notion that both the "n professors" and the "n-1 professors" could have actually have been correct. So, we discuss the difference between sample and population, why I chose the population statistics (n in the denominator) in this module, and why I used 30 years of data. They reported that they had been told different formulas in different courses (e.g., physics, chemistry, geology, biology). The students do not enjoy the calculation of standard deviation. The students divide up into groups to calculate the descriptive statistics with pencil, paper, and calculators (using brute-force methods, not magic keys with STD, for example). I start the in-class session by handing out a page with the 30 years of data. This module on earthquake frequency comes early in the semester, on the day on which reading Chapter 3(Data) is due. Thoughtful students come to appreciate "Everything I ever needed I learned in Kindergarten." The book provides a way for the students to look back at their beginnings after ascending to their somewhat lofty position of weathering calculus. Weekly reading assignments pace through a quantitative literacy textbook aimed at a general audience (Understanding our Quantitative World by Janet Anderson and Todd Swanson). The class serves as the capstone for the mathematics courses required for the geology major (throuogh Calculus 2.Īs is typical of capstone courses in geology (e.g., field camp), the GLY 4866 draws freely and without warning from material anywhere in the students' prior experience. The class consists of students who anticipate graduating in three or fewer semesters. I use this module in my Computational Geology course, GLY 4866 (Acrobat (PDF) 39kB Sep25 06). Get a sense from data that a large earthquake occurs somewhere in the world rather frequently (recurrence interval about 3 weeks).Get a visual impression of a normal distribution both from nearly normally distributed data and from Excel's built-in normal distribution function.Appreciate more the usefulnes of proportional thinking (interpolation).
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Learn how to calculate basic descriptive statistics with Excel.They will be reminded that each step in the magnitude scale corresponds to a 32-fold increase in strength (energy release) They will also note that comparatively few of the large earthquakes occur in the U.S.