Thoughts on Data Analysis 2017

http://www.truthpizza.org/logic/stats.htm

I think the role statistics have in our society is to inform people on the subject a given topic, and possibly influence people to change their opinions on the given topic.

I learned more about the importance of statistics in our society such as general information for safety and everyday life. For example, the percentage of people who survive car crashes when wearing seat belts to the percentage who survive that don’t.

The problems with statistics are that they can be merely made up,  there can be bad sampling, unfair poll questions, and misleading statistics.

11.1 Factors Affecting Data Collection

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_Scotia_Sunday_shopping_referendum,_2004

When I first read the article, I thought it was merely highlighting the point that a referendum on Sunday shopping in Nova Scotia resulted in the majority voting for “no”.

After learning the influencing factors, I now think there was some bias preferencing the “no” vote as the second question was, “If there is to be Sunday shopping, should it be on every Sunday or on only the six Sundays before Christmas?” This shows bias because they’re highlighting the idea of limiting Sunday shopping.

In the future, when reading and interpreting survey data I will more thoroughly analyse the influencing factors such as bias, ethics, and cost.

 

Effortless Kindness

“Some believe that it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay… small acts of kindness and love.” ~ Gandalf

This quote relates to The Friday Everything Changed as the evil refers to the inequality of the genders. Ms. Ralston made the small deed of hitting a home run to show the boys that the genders should be equal. 

Small acts of kindness are somewhat effortless ordinary actions that one carries out. Concrete examples from everyday life are holding a door open for someone or helping someone travel in a wheelchair. 

Louis Riel has been on the forefront of change, but was an ordinary person. Against the Canadian government, he led two Métis resistances to preserve his people’s rights and culture, as the Northwest was changing under the Canadian government’s influence.   

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First Peoples Principles of Learning

“Learning is holistic, reflexive, reflective, experiential, and relational (focused on connectedness, on reciprocal relationships, and a sense of place).”

This quote refers to interrelatedness. The Spheres unit contains interrelated components. It explains how Earth’s systems are all linked and how they work simultaneously. Food webs show how multiple food chains can be linked. 

These examples of Earth’s cycles all work simultaneously to create and maintain life. They have abiotic and biotic components such as water, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, wind, soil animals, plants, and detrivores.

The Hydrological Cycle

The Carbon Cycle

The Nitrogen Cycle

The Phosphorus Cycle

“Learning involves recognizing the consequences of one’s action.”

The spheres unit contains consequeintial components. The unit explains how what humans do can have negative results on the environment. Runoff, insecticide, technology, smoking and factories are all sources of pollution.

Pollution affects organisms with malformations, illnesses and death. This frog has a third back leg. Pollution can also create infertility in animals.

This food chain demonstrates how pollution bioaccumulates and biomagnifies with each trophic level. Bioaccumulation and biomagnification begins in bacteria and travels up the food chain to tertiary consumers.

Our water quality experiment demonstrates how polluted water affects organisms. When water’s polluted, it can affect the entire ecosystem. Primarily it affects the water plants and animals. Secondarily it affects the animals that eat the water plants and animals. It travels up the food chain, resulting in bioaccumulation and biomagnification.