Verona High School2015 AP Statistics Summer Assignment

Mr. Cashill

rcashill@veronaschools.org www.veronaschools.org/cashill908-403-7370

The Urban Dictionary defines AP Statistics as:

A division of math that requires much writing and analytical thought. Taken by AP nerds, those hell bent on going to the 'best' colleges, or by those with a masochistic streak. Can be taken in place of Calculus, or, for those who really enjoy self-punishment, concurrently. Mostly taken by seniors.

"I'm taking AP Statistics this year because I don't feel like taking AP Calc, but my year wouldn't be hellish enough without it."

Welcome to AP Statistics! This course will be unlike any other math class you have ever taken! To get the most out of this course you need to be competent in basic algebra, be familiar with basic statistical measures, understand how to use a TI-Nspire calculator, and, most importantly, be willing to explain your answers, not just simply get the correct answer.

Although this is a math course, AP Statistics concentrates much more heavily on thinking, reasoning, writing, and communicating than it does on number-crunching. Graphing calculators and computer software programs will do most of the tedious “busy work” for you.

This course is focused on four interrelated areas of concentration;

Exploring Data . What patterns in a set of data do you see? What do these tell us about the data? What can we learn from them?

Sampling and Experimenting . What plan would you implement to conduct a study? Can you effectively write a proposal for simulating a real-world situation?

Anticipating Patterns . What can you surmise about random phenomena by using probability? How can you extrapolate your model into the future? What might you hope to have happen?

Statistical Inference . How can you apply given parameters to your test hypothesis to see if it is valid?

This summer assignment is meant to introduce you to the wide world (cliché #1) of statistics, to have you "hit the ground running" (cliché #2) and allow us to move at a "fast and furious” (cliché #3) pace throughout the year.

Since you will obviously have many other things to do this summer, pace yourself! 60-90 minutes per week, on average, or 8-10 hours on the night before school starts, should enable you to do all of the required work.

Please feel free to call, text, or email me over the summer if you have questions or run into difficulties with completing the work.

All of the summer assignment requirements are due by the 3 rd class session of the year with the exception of F—Become an Expert on Sampling & Surveys. This must be done by the first day of class.

The work must be done entirely by you. You can text or email me at any time for assistance but the work must be your own.

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A. Buy/Rent/Borrow a TI-Nspire Calculator

It is strongly recommended (almost mandatory) that you buy a TI-Nspire™ calculator if you do not already have one. All of the examples and problems we will work on will be based on this calculator. If you cannot afford a TI-Nspire or do not think it worth the money, buy one anyway and I will buy it back from you at the end of the year. You will be using your calculator almost every class period and familiarity with it is easily worth 0.5-1.0 points on the AP Exam.

While we do have a few older model class calculators, using them is like wearing someone else’s football cleats or using someone’s baseball glove. Make a commitment to succeed in the course by having your very own calculator.

B. Visit My AP Statistics Web Site

Become familiar with the AP Stats resources on my VHS Web page—www.veronaschools.org/cashill. The page will be updated regularly during the summer and the school year. Copies of this assignment as well as links to the web sites mentioned here are on the site. There is also a link to our AP Statistics eBook—The Practice of Statistics, 4th Edition (TPS4E).

C. Experiment with StatCrunch. StatCrunch is a powerful web-based statistical software that allows users to perform complex analyses, share data sets, and generate compelling reports. A full range of numerical and graphical methods allow users to analyze any data set.

Find a data set of 30-50+ individuals (The objects described by a data set—not necessarily people) that you are interested in. Examples include:

The salaries of the New York Giants (http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/team/new-york-giants/salary/67056?q=new-york-giants)

The top movie grosses of all times (http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/) The most expensive celebrity weddings (http://radaronline.com/photos/extravagant-celebrity-

weddings-photos-gallery/photo/555919/) State populations World health statistics Etc., etc., etc.

www.gapminder.org and www.data.gov/ are great data sites and StatCrunch has a ton of data sets as well.

Assignment. Log into StatCrunch at www.statcrunch.com. I have set up a distinct sign-in that you can use to explore StatCrunch with your data set.

ID: verona2016Password: hillbilly2016

Cut and paste or type in your data set and experiment with the site. Try as many different applications and analyses as possible. Remember to save your work with a distinct name. (Use your initials because many

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students will be using the same ID.) Your goal is to be very, very comfortable with StatCrunch when school starts.

If you need help visit these videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=BE055F65E43B4973

Deliverables. At a minimum, you should create and save the following for your data set:

Summary Statistics: Mean, Median, Minimum Maximum, Q1, Q3, Inter-Quartile Range, Standard Deviation and Range.Graphs: Histogram, Stemplot, Boxplot and Dotplot.

D. Watch (and Take Notes on) The Joy of Stats

The Joy of Stats is a 59 minute long documentary which takes viewers on a rollercoaster ride through the wonderful world of statistics to explore the remarkable power they have to change our understanding of the world. It is presented by superstar boffin (British slang for a particularly clever person even though he is not British) Professor Hans Rosling, whose eye-opening, mind-expanding and funny online lectures have made him an international internet legend.

Rosling's presentations are grounded in solid statistics illustrated by the visualization software he developed. The animations transform development statistics into moving bubbles and flowing curves that make global trends clear, intuitive and even playful. During his legendary presentations, Rosling takes this one step farther, narrating the animations with a sportscaster's flair.

You can view the video at http://www.gapminder.org/videos/the-joy-of-stats/.

Please complete Attachment A as you watch the video.

E. Create a Real World Statistics Portfolio

The beauty of statistics is that it is all around us. We see examples of good and bad stats (See graph at the right) every single day in newspapers and magazines, on newscasts and sporting events and on a host of web sites--especially those dealing with politics, the economy and the government.

To really see how statistics impacts our lives, a major part of your summer assignment is to develop a Real World Statistics Portfolio.

Begin to collect newspaper, magazine, video or internet articles/stories/advertisements that include statistical concepts--both good and bad. These may include things like graphs, charts or tables. They may also report conclusions made as a result of looking at data—e.g., newspaper/internet reports on drug/social/psychology studies.

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For each article/web page/etc., highlight the statistics mentioned and answer the following questions:

a. What is the source of the data? When and where was it published? b. What was the purpose of the article/statistic/data? Why was it written/produced? b. Were any conclusions stated? If so, what were they? c. Is the article/statistics/data convincing? Do you believe the stated results? Explain.

You must have at least 6 articles by September from at least 3 different sources. Each article must be current—that is, it must have appeared in the news from 6/1/15-9/1/15.

Good resources for statistics articles/charts include:

The Newark Star-Ledger The New York Times The Washington Post Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/) Significance Magazine (http://www.significancemagazine.org/view/index.html) The Wall Street Journal’s Numbers Guy (http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/) BBC News Interactives and Graphics (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/11628973) Nate Silver’s 538 blog (http://fivethirtyeight.com/) The Onion (http://www.theonion.com/) Freakonomics (http://www.freakonomics.com/)

Attachment B is a sample of an article and the format that the articles must be submitted in. Each article must be printed out and taped/pasted on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper with the required info on the back.

F. Become an Expert on Sampling & Surveys

We will start the course in Chapter 4—Designing Studies. We need to know how to collect representative data before we can begin to do any statistical analysis. There are three Learning Targets (LTs) in this chapter—LT 4.1: Sampling and Surveys, LT 4.2: Experiments and LT 4.3: Using Studies Wisely.

We will be designing and conducting a sampling survey the first class day in September, so please be prepared.

To gain credit for this part of the summer assignment, follow the following steps:

1. Log onto http://www.learner.org/resources/series65.html?pop=yes&pid=3135#. This is called Against All Odds—Inside Statistics.

2. Scroll down to Unit 16: Census and Sampling and Unit 17: Sample & Surveys.AP Statistics 2015 Summer Assignment Page 4

3. For both units watch the video and download, read/highlight and complete the student guides. (The student guides will also be available in MS Word form on my web site.

4. Turn in the completed student guides on the first day of class.

Each of the student guides includes the following sections:

Summary of Video The Video* (Questions from the video) Student Learning Objectives Unit Activity* Content Overview Exercises* Key Terms Review Questions*

The four asterisked (*) sections, require answers from you. If you download the PDF files, please do not try to write your answers between the questions—there is not enough room between them. Either write it neatly on a separate sheet of paper or type it up using my web site copies. Your responses will make great notes later on.

You will be graded on the completeness of the assignment more than on how correct the answers are . In fact, you are free to download the Faculty Guide to check your answers after you have tried the problems on your own.

Please note that you are doing this assignment on the VHS Cashill AP Statistics Honor System (see section G following). Do not be lazy and copy the correct answers—it will do you no good.

For additional help on sampling, surveys and experiments, go to Stat Trek, a great statistics web site at http://stattrek.com/statistics/data-collection-methods.aspx?Tutorial=AP.

There are two sections on Surveys and Experiments with good notes and great videos.

G. Understand Academic Integrity

Academic integrity essentially means "intellectual honesty": honesty in the use of information, in formulating arguments, and in other activities related to the pursuit of knowledge and understanding. It is a core principle that underpins how we live and learn in a community of inquiry. As members of an academic community, we are entitled to a wide degree of freedom in the pursuit of scholarly interests. With that freedom, however, comes the responsibility to uphold the high ethical standards of academic conduct.

If I were to ask each of the AP Stats students their definition of “Academic Integrity”, I would probably get different answers from everyone in the class.

A lot of the work you will be doing in AP Stats involves partners or small groups. In addition, many of the tests are open-book, take-home tests. Because of the nature of the course it is imperative that each and every one of us has the exact same understanding of what constitutes “Academic Integrity.”

Every assignment that you do for credit in AP Statistics will require you to sign an honor pledge—“On my honor, I have neither given nor received any unauthorized aid on this assignment.” No signature, no grade.

The goal of this summer assignment is to get you to better understand Academic Integrity and Honor in a high school setting.

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Assignment

1. Go to the web page for the college you hope to/expect to go to and print out their Academic Integrity/Honor System/Honor Code. Read it, highlight it and be prepared to discuss the following:

Who runs the honor system? What constitutes breeches of the college’s honor system? What penalties are there? Your comments on whether you agree or disagree with the college’s statements.

2. Watch a short video (15 minutes long) entitled “Washington and Lee Honor System: An Orientation. You can find this video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk1PAoIAQYI

Washington & Lee is my alma mater and our AP Stats Honor System is based on their system.

G. Beach Reading/Listening/Watching

If you have the time and want to delve a little further into the world of statistics, try out one or more of the following resources. These are not required at all.

Books

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Levitt and Dubner

The Drunkard’s Walk, How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow

Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists, J. Best, University of California Press, 2001.

A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper, J. A. Paulos, Basic Books, 1995.

200% of Nothing, A. K. Dewdney, John Wiley and Sons, 1993.

Bringing Down the House: How Six Students Took Vegas for Millons, B. Mezrich, Free Press, 2002

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, M. Lewis, Norton, 2003 Tainted Truth: The Manipulation of Fact In America, C. Crossen The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities,

and the Modern World, S. Johnson The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, M. Gladwell, Little, Brown & Co., 2002

Videos (TED Talks)

The Freakononics of Crack Dealing: http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_analyzes_crack_economics

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Surprising Stats about Child Car Seats: http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_on_child_carseats What We Learned from 5,000,000 Books:

https://www.ted.com/talks/what_we_learned_from_5_million_books

How Juries are Fooled by Statistics: http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_donnelly_shows_how_stats_fool_juries

Why Smart Statistics are the Key to Fighting Crime: http://www.ted.com/talks/anne_milgram_why_smart_statistics_are_the_key_to_fighting_crime

Does Racism Affect How You Vote?: http://www.ted.com/talks/nate_silver_on_race_and_politics Flip Your Thinking About AIDS in Africa:

http://www.ted.com/talks/emily_oster_flips_our_thinking_on_aids_in_africa

Make sure to complete and sign Attachment C indicating what you did or did not do this summer.

Final Note: I will put links to all of the Internet-based resources on an AP Statistics Summer Assignment link from the Welcome page of my web site.

Attachment A--“ The Joy of Statistics ”

Hans Rosling @ http://www.gapminder.org/videos/the‐joy‐of‐stats/. As you watch the video, please fill in the blanks in the following statements.

1. The average human sleeps years of their life.

2. Hans' official area of expertise is .

3. The & supplies a large amount of the data that Hans uses in his presentations.

4. The word statistics comes from the word .

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5. These data were published in the .

6. Sweden estimated they had a population of million until they started collecting data & found they only had a population of _______ million.

7. The early term for statistics was .

8. In Hans’ 200 year analysis, he uses & as his two variables.

9. Babbage wrote Tennyson about a line in his poem “_________ & ”__________ indicating that the correct number should be __________ .

10. Francis Galton came up the concept/ realization of the .

11. The Poisson Distribution describes the number of Prussian Officers by their horses each year.

12. Florence Nightingale started collecting data on _________ &_________ at age nine.

13. During the war Florence Nightingale collected mortality data & graphed the data using .

14. In the 1950’s, Sir Richard Doll first showed the correlation between & .

15. Data is the of science.

16. Sweden’s goal in the Olympics is not to win, but to .

17. The Sloan Sky Surveyor is located at an observatory in .

18. Sep Kamvar of Stanford is working on a database.

19. Women feel more, but also feel .

20. Men feel more, but feel more .

Attachment B—Real World Statistics Portfolio

Marijuana and race: ACLU finds blacks in New Jersey arrested at 3 times the rate of whites

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By Star-Ledger Staff on June 04, 2013 at 10:20 AM, updated June 05, 2013 at 10:35 AM

By Seth Augenstein and James Queally

Black people in the U.S. are nearly four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white people - despite comparable usage rates, according to an American Civil Liberties Union report released today.

Blacks are nearly three times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites in New Jersey, and roughly four times as likely nationwide, according to a report released today by the American Civil Liberties Union that showed a deep racial divide in arrests in several counties throughout the state.

While the two races use marijuana at roughly the same rate, the report said, blacks were up to 30 times more likely to be arrested in some parts of the country. In two Alabama counties, for example, 100 percent of those arrested for marijuana possession in 2010 were black, the report said.

Nationwide, blacks were arrested at a rate of 716 per 100,000 in 2010 — the most recent year studied — up from 537 in 2001, according to the report. Whites were arrested at a rate of 192 per 100,000 in 2010, nearly the same as in 2001. The report also said marijuana arrests accounted for more than half of all drug arrests in the country, and roughly 43 percent in New Jersey.

The report was compiled using data from FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports and the U.S. Census. It does not specify how police came to make the arrests or if the arrests were made in conjunction with other crimes. However, the ACLU said the arrests were not connected to violent crime.

Alexander Shalom, policy counsel for the state chapter of the ACLU, said the racial divide could be deeper if adjusted for the Hispanic population, which is counted as white in FBI reports.

Still, the data is clear evidence that police across the country unfairly target minorities in order to pump up arrest totals, according to one of the report’s authors.

"The war on marijuana has disproportionately been a war on people of color," said Ezekiel Edwards, director of the ACLU’s Criminal Law Reform Project.

According the report, blacks in New Jersey were 2.8 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites, below the national average of 3.73.Several counties reported deep disparities in arrest rates.

In Hunterdon County, where more than 90 percent of the population is white, blacks were five times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession, the report said. Five other counties — Ocean, Monmouth, Mercer, Warren and Salem counties — had disparities higher than the national average, the report said.Law enforcement officials were quick to note the limitations of the study.

Toms River Police Chief Michael Mastronardy said it would be difficult to determine racism as a motive for the disparity without knowing how police came to make those arrests. Marijuana arrests are often secondary to motor vehicle stops or domestic disturbances, situations in which officers are dispatched without knowing the race of the people involved.

"If you’re stopping somebody at night, you don’t know (the race)," he said, adding the same is true " if you’re called to a disturbance and you start running warrants."

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John Kuczynski, chief of detectives for the Hunterdon County Prosecutor’s Office, shot down any suggestion police in his county were making arrests based on race. He said the bulk of marijuana arrests in the county are the result of motor-vehicle stops, but added that he is willing to discuss the report’s findings with the ACLU.

"It’s not based upon race," he said. "It’s based upon offense whoever is trafficking."

The state Attorney General’s Office declined to comment. Calls to law enforcement leaders in Monmouth, Salem and Warren counties were not retuned.

A graphic from the ACLU report "The War on Marijuana in Black and White" shows how black people are 2.8 times likelier to be arrested for marijuana than white people in New Jersey. Some of the counties with the higher disparities are rural areas, like Hunterdon, Warren and Salem counties.

Peter Moskos, a criminologist at the John Jay School of Criminal Justice in New York, said the data was a product of "racism without racists." Drug task forces formed to combat the crack and heroin boom decades ago have shifted their focus to marijuana in order to maintain funding from national sources, he said.

"Once you have the apparatus, you’re not going to care what the drug is," he said.

A 2012 Star-Ledger report showed heroin, not marijuana, was the problematic drug in the three New Jersey counties with the worst arrest disparities — Hunterdon, Ocean and Monmouth.

The report also found states spent an estimated $3.61 billion enforcing marijuana possession laws in 2010 alone. In New Jersey, that figure was $127.3 million per year, a number which drew the ire of pro-marijuana advocates.

"You could build a lot of schools with that," said Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Union) who introduced legislation to de-criminalize marijuana earlier this year.

Roseanne Scotti, the director of the state chapter of the Drug Policy Alliance, called the report’s findings "morally appalling and fiscally ridiculous.""I think when you look at some of the counties like that, it’s hard to imagine or find any way to reason your way out of the fact that it could be anything other than intentional discrimination," she said. "The numbers don’t lie."

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a. What is the source of the data? When and where was it published?

NJ.com; New Jersey on 6/4/10.

b. What was the purpose of the article/statistic/data? Why was it written/produced?

The purpose of the article was to draw attention to the disparate rates of marijuana arrests in New Jersey between blacks and whites. The study purported to show that blacks are more likely than whites in many parts of the country to be singles out for arrest.

c. Were any conclusions stated? If so, what were they?

Primary conclusion is that racism places a significant part in marijuana arrests.

d. Is the article/statistics/data convincing? Do you believe the stated results? Explain.

The article is very convincing although I would like to read the entire report before drawing my own conclusions.

Attachment C: AP Statistics 2015 Summer assignment ChecklistAP Statistics 2015 Summer Assignment Page 11

Assignment Yes No If “No”, What great excuse do you have?A. Buy/Own a TI-Nspire calculator.

B. Visit www.veronaschools.org/cashill

C. Experiment with StatCrunch and save your results.

D. Watch “The Joy of Statistics” & turn in Attachment A.

E. Create a Real World Statistics Portfolio (Turn in 6 articles).

F. Become an expert on Sampling & Surveys. Watch the Against all Odds videos and turn in completed Unit 16 and Unit 17 Student Guides.

G. Understand Academic Integrity(Turn in a college honor system printout).

H. Beach Reading. Not required.

On my honor, I have completed the following summer assignments and have turned in the required material.”

Signed: ___________________________ Name: ________________________________

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