Education Technology

German Tanks: Exploring Sampling Distributions

Subject Area
Math: Statistics: Sampling Distributions
Level
9-12
Activity Time
45 Minutes
Software
TI-Nspire™ CX CAS
TI-Nspire™ CX
TI Calculator
TI-Nspire™ CX/CX II
TI-Nspire™ CX CAS/CX II CAS
TI-Nspire Version
5.0
Resource Types
Lessons
Format
TNS

German Tanks: Exploring Sampling Distributions

Activity Overview

In this lesson, students will estimate the largest number of a population based on random samples from the population, as statisticians did in WWII.

Objectives

  • Students will be able to interpret variability in the sampling distribution of a sample statistic.
  • Students will evaluate the usefulness of a statistic by studying its sampling distribution.
  • Students will be able to identify a biased estimator that results in predominantly over or under estimates of the population parameter.

Vocabulary

  • bias
  • dotplot
  • mean
  • median
  • maximum
  • minimum
  • parameter
  • statistic
  • variability

About the Lesson

This lesson involves estimating the largest value from a population of consecutive numbers starting at 1.
As a result, students will:

  • Create rules to estimate the largest number of a population based on random samples from the population.
  • Analyze rules using graphs of the sampling distributions of a sample statistic.
  • Analyze rules to determine an estimate of the largest value from a population.

Subject Area
Math: Statistics: Sampling Distributions
Level
9-12
Activity Time
45 Minutes
Software
TI-Nspire™ CX CAS
TI-Nspire™ CX
TI Calculator
TI-Nspire™ CX/CX II
TI-Nspire™ CX CAS/CX II CAS
TI-Nspire Version
5.0
Resource Types
Lessons
Format
TNS
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