For the Love of Stats – A Lesson For Valentine’s Day
Math Medic
If your students are anything like ours, you know how they can struggle through the long stretch from holiday winter break to spring break. We are always looking for a day in February to break from the standard schedule, whether it’s a weather delay, early dismissal, or a half-day on Valentine’s Day. This year, we will show our students how much we love them with a fun stats activity, instead of giving them a Valentine.
This activity was created after we shared the Trick-or-Treat Halloween Stats Activity, and AP Stats international all-star teacher Corey Andreasen emailed an idea for a Valentine’s Day activity. Here is a link to the data.
Activity: For the Love of Stats
Download the Activity
Download the Answer Key
Concepts Reviewed in this Activity
Use a calculator to construct a scatterplot.
Describe the relationship between two quantitative variables.
Use a calculator to find the equation of the LSRL.
Find and interpret the coefficient of determination.
Create a residual plot
Assess the appropriateness of a linear model for a given set of data.
The Grand Reveal
The best part of the activity comes at the end when students fall in love with the residual plot for the data set:
We hope your students enjoy it!
About the Author
Matt McBurney
Matt is a teacher at West Allegheny High School in Pittsburgh, PA, who’s certified to teach math, physics, and computer science. He works alongside the Math Medic team to field community questions, create new resources, and take on any other tasks. Matt was the 2018 recipient of the Pennsylvania Council of Mathematics New Teacher Award and has two published mathematics papers. Matt loves that he gets to help students from around the nation and feels truly passionate about teaching in the EFFL style, always asking the question, “How can we make this fun?” A lifelong learner and accomplished limbo-er, Matt spends his free time having fun and learning new things ā which are really the same thing to him.