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...
One way to engage students in the classroom is by bringing in debates and real world examples. Sometimes, such debates take place largely over social media. A Facebook question du jour: Is "free-range" (letting your kids go out side, walk to the store, etc. without supervision) a good way to build independence or child neglect? Anecdotes abound, but how safe is your kid when they are out on their own? What kind of data could help us answer this question objectively? http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/opinion/the-case-for-free- range-parenting.html The first piece of information comes from an opinion piece by Clemens Wergin from the New York Times ( .pdf in case of pay wall). Wergin describes how free range parenting is the norm in Germany and contrasts American attitudes to German attitudes, providing a quick example of multicultralism (and why we should never assume that the American attitude towards something is the only opinion). He then provides data that explain...