Bad Science/Interpretation/Worksheet

Scary Medical Statistics: Lost In Interpretation!

Student Worksheet

What’s the likelihood of that!?

On the scale below, write down some events…just anything you think that would definitely happen, could happen, or would never be seen in a million years!

Why is it so important that we get numbers and probabilities right?

Using the Number Generator on the website, were you able to predict the number:

a) when guessing a number between 1 and 10?

b) when guessing a number between 1 and 1,000,000?

How easy or difficult did you find this and why?

Now, working in pairs or in groups, using materials supplied by your teacher, invent some data! Write a short paragraph of what you did, and what you used, in the space below:

Record your results in a table/graph/pie-chart in the space below:

How can you interpret this data (as if you are a newspaper journalist) so that you’re:

a) telling the truth and informing readers of what you were trying to investigate,

or

b) telling the scariest story ever i.e. manipulating the data so that it doesn’t really say what you set out to investigate?

What’s your snappy headline going to be?