Community Outreach for Statistics Education

The goal of the HI-RiSE team is to help create positive, effective statistics education environments in a variety of ways. One of the ways the team tries to reach this goal is by participating in professional development events throughout the school year. This September, members of the HI-RiSE team were able to participate in two events that were held for North Carolina educators.

On September 20th, 2018 the North Carolina Museum of Science hosted the SciREN Triangle Networking Event and Open House. This free event is hosted by SciREN (Scientific Research and Education Network). During the event educators from around the state had the opportunity to engage with museum staff about activities available for classes as well as meet local researchers who prepared lesson plans ready to distribute based on their research. The HI-RiSE team prepared a lesson plan based off of an investigation about a data set of 157 roller coasters using CODAP. Hollylynne Lee, Gemma Mojica, and Christina Azmy attended the event where they were able to showcase features of CODAP, share the lesson plan, and let educators know about free MOOCs available through the Friday Institute for anyone interested in learning more about statistics.

From left to right: Hollylynne Lee, Gemma Mojica, and Christina Azmy sharing CODAP and lesson plan.

On September 29th the North Carolina Chapter of the American Statistical Association (NC ASA) partnered with the NC School of Science in Math in Durham to host a one day work shop for statistics teachers. Participants in the workshop engaged in hands on simulation activities relevant to the AP Statistics curriculum as well as simulations that can be modeling using SAS JMP. Hollylynne Lee, Heather Barker and Taylor Harrison attended the event. There we were able to share information about free professional development available to statistics educators. It was also a great way to network with statistics teachers around the state and see how teachers engage in statistics activities relevant to their students.

Taylor Harrison and Heather Barker participating in the workshop with statistics educators.

When creating professional development for educators it is important for us to be able to stay in touch with what educators in the field are currently doing. Being able to take part in these events helps keep us abreast of what teachers are doing and what they need.