Park City Mathematics Institute Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability Project Abstracts Drafts of Project Files (password required)

Let 'Em Roll

Matt Carpenter

"Come on down...you're the next contestant on The Price Is Right!" Use this activity to simulate the Let 'Em Roll™ game from the TV show The Price Is Right™. The goal of this game is to win a car by rolling five specialized dice, and trying to get a car to appear on all five dice after a certain number of rolls. Students will use the Fathom computer software to generate experimental probabilities, which will be used to estimate the theoretical probability of winning a car given two or three rolls. Once these estimates have been made, students will calculate the theoretical probabilities by hand using rules for mutual exclusive and independent events.

Exercise and Cholesterol

Judy Carlin, Oscar Chavarria, and Meiling Dang

Is this reasonable? Through simulation students investigate how likely, or unlikely, it is to obtain results similar to those presented in a hypothesized study. Multiple samples and measures are then collected using Fathom. The activity is concluded by discussing how the original experimental design can be improved.

Fathom® and US Census Data

Matt Bracher, Jerry Pascher, Seth Bundy, and Arnell Crayton

The Fathom 2 software package is a powerful data and statistics tool that can be used to teach a variety of concepts. These four projects each deal with random samples of US census data and analysis of different census attributes. One project explores the correlation between worker wages and educational attainment; another the demographics of persons born outside the US; the third deals with the racial and ethnic identity of Latinos; and the fourth with a method for calculating the correlation coefficient. Taken together, these projects provide a broad introduction to the use of Fathom in math and social science classrooms, as well as significant analysis of the specific topics studied.

Jerry: Worker Wages as a Function of Highest Level of Educational attainment.

Matt: Country of Origin

Seth: Latino Racial and Ethnic Identity

Arnell: Calculating "r": The correlation coefficient

Conic Sliders

Demian Morquin and Youngson Sinkala

The aim of this project is to enable students to use parameters to investigate conic sections. Students will need to write down equations of conic sections and explore different parameters using Fathom and its various tools such as collections, graphs, and sliders. By following the set of instructions, students will be working through a series of activities and answering questions related to conic sections. Finally, students will create their own project to assess their knowledge.

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