Activities for Classes

Articles & Presentations on Using History to Teach Statistics

JSM 2019 Topic Contributed Paper Session (Tue, 7/30/2019)
Snapshots in History: Statisticians Making an Impact

10:35 AM	Abraham DeMoivre: Progenitor of Statistics Herbert Weisberg
10:55 AM	Two Chapters in the Development of Human Population Sampling (1895/1934) Dominic Lusinchi
11:15 AM	Brewing Up Statistics: A look at Gosset’s contributions Martha McRoy, Pew Research Center
11:35 AM	Using Primary Historical Sources to Teach Statistics Beverly Wood, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
11:55 AM	A One-Credit History of Statistics Course using “The Lady Tasting Tea” by David Salsburg with Supplementary Readings Phyllis Curtiss, Grand Valley State University; Kirk Anderson, Grand Valley State Univ
12:15 PM	Floor Discussion

Conference Proceedings from JSM 2003 Invited Session: Using the History of Statistics to Improve the Teaching of Statistics

The History of Statistics in the Classroom by Herbert A. David
Statistical Ideas in the Classroom – Lessons from History by David Bellhouse
A short general bibliography by Herb David

Conference Proceedings from Biennial Congress of the ISI 2005 Session IPM 52:Using history of statistics to enhance the teaching of statistic

Probability And Statistics Ideas In The Classroom - Lessons From History : David Bellhouse
Taking The Fear Out Of Data Analysis: Case For History Lessons In Statistics Courses : Irena Ograjenšek
Teaching Probability Via Its History: Reflections On A Case Study : David Vere-Jones
Discussant Remarks on IPM 52 : Maria Gabriella Ottaviani

Classroom Lessons, Projects, and Handouts

Two activities in Statistics from TRansforming Instruction in Undergraduate Mathematics via Primary Historical Sources (TRIUMPHS) project

Quantifying Certainty: the p-value (PDF)
Seeing and Understanding Data (PDF)

Reading and Exercises on the History of Probability from the Vermont Mathematics Initiative, Bob Rosenfeld

Pre-history to 1600 (PDF)
17th Century France (PDF)
Jacob Bernoulli - Law of Large Numbers (PDF)
Inverse Probability - Thomas Bayes (PDF)
Laplace (PDF)

Reading and Exercises on the History of Statistics from the Vermont Mathematics Initiative, Bob Rosenfeld

John Graunt and the Bills of Mortality (PDF)
Origin of the Normal Curve (PDF)
Origins of Graphs in Statistics (PDF)
Fitting models to data - the Path to Least Squares (PDF)
Statistics Moves from Physical to Social Sciences (PDF)
Correlation - Francis Galton (PDF)
t-Distirbution and Gosset (PDF)
Fisher and Design of Experiments (PDF)

Puzzles from JSM

Statisticians in History Crossword Puzzle (featured in Significance Dec 2018) and Answer Key
Names of Famous Statisticians Matching Game (answers on p. 3)
Data Visualization Word Search and Answer Key
History of Statistics Interest Group Hidden Message and Answer Key

Videos

BBC One Ideas: What would Florence Nightingale make of big data?