Statistics Concepts:  relative risk

Activities featured: construction of a survey, analysis of statistical data, developing a policy recommendation.

AP Statistics Standard Course of Study Objectives addressed: 3.01-3.05, 3.09

Introductory Math Standard Course of Study Objectives addressed: 3.01

AFM Standard Course of Study Objectives addressed: 1.02 

Discrete Math Standard Course of Study Objectives addressed: 2.01

Integrated Math IV Standard Course of Study Objectives addressed: 3.01

            This Field Study addresses the question of the practical value of math outside of the classroom.  Students will use mathematical concepts, especially those related to statistics, to construct a survey to be administered to paramedics and other first-response workers about exposure to blood in the workplace.

            Constella Group executed this survey at the request of the Centers for Disease Control.  Students will model the process used by Constella statisticians to construct the survey as well as using a suite of epidemiology software produced by CDC to analyze a portion of the actual dataset from that survey.  After analyzing the data, the students will summarize their findings and present policy recommendations to the group, based on what the data suggest to be successful ways of preventing this exposure.

            Students see from the inside concepts such as assumption, sample, pilot study, cost-effectiveness, association, bias, reliability, causality, and confounding.  They are asked to brainstorm and be creative, just as Constella’s professionals had to be.

Student Profile

This unit is appropriate for students at several levels of mathematics instruction.  Computational demands are low (students perform basic arithmetic and conversion from decimal to percent).  Any student taking math related to critical thinking as well as AP Statistics could benefit.