Introductory statistics and fish management

1. INTRODUCTION Bringing relevance to the introductory statistics classroom is possible with a visit to your state's Fish and Wildlife Department. This paper describes how fisheries research and management data have been incorporated in an Introductory Statistics course at Keene State College, New Hampshire. The data are used for the usual descriptive and inferential statistics procedures, however emphasis is placed on the interpretation of the statistical analysis and the decisions to be made about fisheries management based on the assessment of real data. The fisheries management data, available from http://web. keene. edu/- djardine/web/math141/nhf&g.html, are used for a number of classroom activities and out-of-class group projects. In addition to gaining motivation from seeing the practical relevance of the course, some students have participated in the data collection and analysis for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department (NHFG). The Introductory Statistics course at Keene State College strives to meet the guidelines of the joint curriculum committee of the American Statistical Association and the Mathematical Association of America for the initial undergraduate experience in statistics [1]. Data drives the course, and a wonderful source of data is the local office of the NHFG. The focus of the course is not just on statistical procedures, but on interpretation, drawing conclusions, and making decisions based on the results of the analysis. Students learn to use technology extensively to interpret and analyze data. As a result of their reporting and analysis, students develop an important environmental awareness as well as the "real-world" application of statistics. 2. OVERVIEW OF COURSE PROJECTS The data from NHFG are principally used for a sequence of course projects that provide continuity throughout the course. Insight for this use of the data came from reports developed by a NHFG fish and game department biologist [2]. The first project involves the use of graphical and numerical descriptive statistics to analyze the data in ways not encountered in textbook activities. In the second project, students gain experience with scatter plots and regression analysis, again employing the fisheries data. Students use inferential statistics in the third and fourth projects to draw conclusions about population parameters based on samples drawn from the NHFG data. In each of the project reports, students discuss data collection issues. In a final individual course project, students use the data in a comprehensive way to do further inferential analysis. By using the data throughout the course, the fisheries data are used as a thread to meaningfully bind the various sections of the course. 3. STUDENT USE OF TECHNOLOGY The students present their project results with brief written and oral reports. These activities provide experience in technical writing and oral presentations. Almost all students use Microsoft PowerPoint to make their presentations and rely on the TI-83 Plus for the inferential statistics portion of the course. As this is a service course, Excel is used extensively for the descriptive and inferential statistics. Skill in using Excel benefits students in subsequent management and science courses. The strengths and weaknesses of Excel's Data Analysis Add-In are an integral part of the course discussion. The limitations and errors of Excel [3] are discussed with students early and often. Since Excel is widely available to students before and after graduation, and since the data sets used in the course do not exceed the program's limitations, this software package is a reasonable choice at a school or college with limited funds available for specialized statistical software. Additionally, it is useful for students to understand that all mathematical and statistical software packages have limitations. Using Excel, students learn to become appropriately skeptical about computer generated graphs and numerics. …