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Updated example of using baby names to illustrate bimodal distributions.

The thing about my way of teaching stats is that my cool, novel examples get old really fast. Like, pop culture is on a thirty-day cycle. Anyway, YEARS ago, 2014 to be exact, I blogged about illustrating bimodal data distributions  using baby name data from the Social Security Administration. Specifically, when an older name comes back into vogue, it has a bimodal distribution when you plot time on the X axis.  I stand by this example. However, all of the data illustrations come from 2014. When our traditionally aged college students were 6 or 7. Which makes this example feel a little stale. However, here is some data,  courtesy of Redditor  fevaah ,  showing  old names that are back in vogue through 2025 ! And Eleanor, Violet, Nora, and Hazel are here, illustrating bimodal distributions for a new generation. If you used my old baby-name data, this is a quick, easy refresh for your lectures (or a fun new addition if you didn't).  If this idea was help...

"Correlation is not causation", Parts 1 and 2

Jethro Waters, Dan Peterson, Ph.D., Laurie McCollough, and Luke Norton made a pair of animated videos (1, 2) that explain why correlation does not equal causation and how we can perform lab research in order to determine if causal relationships exist.

I like them a bunch. Specific points worth liking:

-Illustrations of scatter plots for significant and non-significant relationships.

Data does not support the old wive's tale that everyone goes a little crazy during full moons.

-Explains the Third Variable problem.
Simple, pretty illustration of the perennial correlation example of ice cream sales (X):death by drowning (Y) relationship, and the third variable, hot weather (Z) that drives the relationship.
-In addition to discussing correlation =/= causation, the video makes suggestions for studying a correlational relationship via more rigorous research methods (here violent video games:violent behavior).
Video games (X) influence aggression (Y) via the moderator of personality (Z)


In order to test the video game hypothesis without using diary/retrospective data collection, the video describes how one might design a research study to test this hypothesis.

-Finally, at the end of  the video, they provide citations to the research used in the video. You could take this example a step further and have your students look at the source research.

Special thanks to Rajiv Jhangiani for introducing me to this resource!

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