Learning Objective:

The student will understand the concept of rank, per capita, and proportion as expressed in a pie graph.

Background:

From public opinion polls to market research and the national census, statistics are all around us. These can be presented in many ways and understanding the terms is essential in order to interpret the information correctly. This practical activity enables students to understand some common statistical terms and draw conclusions based on this information.

Assignment:

Follow the instructions below and fill in the answers in each box. DO NOT press enter before you are ready to submit your answers. If you do accidentally press enter, click the "back" button in your browser window. The last answers you send will be used to calculate your grade.

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Section I: Understanding Rank

Steps:

1.  Open NationMaster in your browser window by clicking on the link to the below.

http://www.nationmaster.com/

2.  Using the green search form at the top of the page; Select "media" from the 'in category' list and "Personal computers*" from the 'select media stat' list.

The countries in the list are in order from the one with the most computers to the one with the least computers.

The rank of a country is its position in the list.

Questions:

1. Which country has rank 4? 

2. What is the rank of Canada?

3. Which country has more personal computers? Japan or Canada?

Section II: Per Capita

Using the green search form at the top of the page, Select "Crime" from the 'in category' list and "Total crimes*" from the 'select crime stat' list (you will need to scroll down the list).

Questions:

4. How many crimes were reported in the United States?

Click on 'country' at the top of the list to arrange the countries into alphabetical order.

5. How many crimes were reported in Dominica?

Using the green search form at the top of the page, select "People" from the 'in category' list and "Population*" from the 'select people stat' list (you will need to scroll down the list).

Question

6. Which country has a larger population, USA or Dominica?

Return to the "total crimes" page.

"Per Capita" means "for each person"

If the Jones family has six members and they ate three pizzas, each person ate (on average) 3/6 = 0.5 pizzas. So the Jones family ate 0.5 pizzas per capita. The Smith family has twelve members and ate four pizzas. Each person ate 4/12 =0.33 pizzas so the Smith family ate 0.33 pizzas per capita. So the Smith family ate more pizzas in total but they have a lower per capita rate. This means each person in the Smith family ate less pizza than each person in the Jones family.

Click on "per capita" at the top of the graph.

Questions

7. What rank is the per capita crime rate for Dominica?

8. What rank is the per capita crime rate for US?

9. Which country is safer? Select answer Dominica United Stats

Section III: Proportion

Some statistics are given as a percentage and can be used to easily compare countries of different sizes.

Percentage means 'out of every hundred'.

Using the green search form at the top of the page, select "people" from the 'in category' list and "Age-structure - 0 -14 yrs*" from the 'select people stat' list.

Questions

10. What percentage of people in Uganda are aged between 0 and 14 years old?

Click on 'country' at the top of the list to arrange the countries into alphabetical order.

11. If you visited Uganda and met 100 people Select answer most about half a few of them would be children aged 0 to 14 years.

Section IV: Bar and Pie charts

Using the green search form at the top of the page, select "language" from the 'in category' list and "English speakers*" from the 'select language stat' list.

Questions

12. How many English speakers are there in Australia?

Complete the following statement. Note this is only a prediction.

13. I think the number of English speakers in the United States is Select an answer less than about the same as more than the number in all other countries put together.

From this graph it is obvious that the United States has a very large number of English speakers but it is difficult to determine how this compares with the rest of the world. A pie chart makes this comparison easier.

Click on "pie chart"

Question

14. What proportion of English speakers live in the United States?

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