San
Francisco Bay Area Chapter (Non-Profit),
American
Statistical Association (ASA) Announcement
Volunteer Statisticians to visit Kindergarten through 12th
grade
Mathematics, Science or AP
Statistics classes.
The non-profit San Francisco Bay Area Chapter (www.sfasa.org) of the American Statistical Association (ASA, www.amstat.org) was chartered in 1929 and is one of the 10 largest chapters in the ASA by membership. ASA, founded in 1839, is the second oldest continuously operating professional organization in America and is proud that Florence Nightingale, Alexander Graham Bell, Herman Hollerith, Andrew Carnegie, and Martin Van Buren were once members.
The ASA has contributed nationally to the common core curriculum for mathematics adopted by 42 states, including California. In 2014, every mathematics class in California will include statistics in its common core curriculum (http://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr10/yr10rel67.asp). AP statistics classes will expand their curriculum.
The ASA holds an annual competition for posters and projects displaying statistical applications by individual students or teams from K-12. The ASA also organizes a poster competition for students (http://www.amstat.org/education/posterprojects/index.cfm) and has created a Census at School module to enrich understanding of the 2010 census (http://magazine.amstat.org/blog/2010/04/01/censusatschool/).
The Bay Area Chapter currently has over a dozen volunteer statisticians to assist in K-12 classroom activities involving statistics, including AP (Advanced Placement) Statistics. A list of the Volunteers is attached.
Our chapter volunteers will be glad to visit a Bay Area K-12 classroom for 1-2 hours to give a fun lecture on statistics. Past lectures have included careers in statistics and designing a clinical trial. Our volunteers can answer student and teacher questions about statistics and can also respond to email questions from teachers. Our volunteers can assist students participating in the ASA poster session or in the Census at School.
The Bay Area chapter is also organizing a workshop for AP statistics teachers called ÒBeyond AP StatisticsÓ, tentatively to be held in summer 2011 in the San Francisco Bay Area. We are also interested in arranging opportunities for teachers to shadow a statistician at work.
Our K-12 initiative includes an advisory committee available to suggest ideas for the volunteers. The committee membership includes Bay Area AP Statistics scholars and leaders in industry. The membership of the advisory committee appears in the attached
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