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  • Created 20 Jun 2022

This is a completed Faculty Mentoring Network (FMN). FMNs are sustained, immersive, community-based professional development opportunities for faculty. FMNs support the adaptation and implementation of materials and/or instructional approaches in their classrooms. Learn more about FMNs.

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Statistics and Biology: A Correlation Made in Heaven

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Goals

  • Adapt modules that address mathematical skills using a topic in biology
  • Learn how to use data-driven modules in undergraduate life science courses
  • Mix and match parts of modules and customize them for use in the classroom

Mentors


Final Products

Methylmercury contamination within fish populations is an important toxin that affect human, animal, and environmental health, serving as a carcinogen (cancer-causing agent) and endocrine-disruptor (compounds that in some way alter the signaling of the hormone system. The impacts of exceeding safe dietary methylmercury levels were tragically made clear in Ontario, Canada, where a First Nations community in Grassy Narrows are living with the consequences of methylmercury poisoning in the fish supply. The fish were contaminated due to the dumping of mercury in the traditional waterways of the First Nation community. In 2016, there were highly publicized protests in Muskrat Falls, Labrador, Canada, where the Inuit people raised direct concerns about the potential for a proposed Nalcor Energy hydroelectric dam, to increase mercury levels in fish in those waters, which are an integral part of their traditional diet. Despite significant protests, the project was completed in 2019 and 41 km were flooded. This module uses these real-world examples as a jumping-off point for exercises that will guide case-study driven discussion on mathematical, biological and ethical concerns.
statistics, mathematics, biostatistics, ecology, biology, graphing, p-values, t-tests, hypothesis testing, in-class activity, Zoology, mercury biogeochemistry, biostatistics - general, fish population, qbcc, Endocrine Disruptors, Biogeochemical cycles, Interpret graphs, Solving Equations and Inequalities, Concepts in Statistics, Elementary Hypothesis Testing, Methylmercury, dams, Bioaccumulation, traditional diets, mercury, mercury poisoning, native people, indigenous population, Canada, hydroelectric, explaining statistics, using statistics, biomagnification
642
627
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0
02.2023
Students are introduced to concepts of sampling distributions and hypothesis testing using a simulation applet, elementary hypothesis tests, t-tests, and p-values as they compare a given fish population for methylmercury levels (using real and hypothetical data) against real-world mercury standards.
statistics, mathematics, biostatistics, ecology, biology, graphing, p-values, t-tests, hypothesis testing, in-class activity, Zoology, mercury biogeochemistry, biostatistics - general, fish population, qbcc, Biogeochemical cycles, Interpret graphs, Solving Equations and Inequalities, Concepts in Statistics, Elementary Hypothesis Testing, Methylmercury, dams, Bioaccumulation, traditional diets, mercury, mercury poisoning, native people, indigenous population, Canada, hydroelectric, explaining statistics, using statistics
639
707
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0
02.2023
In this activity, students use real water chemistry data and descriptive statistics in Excel to examine primary productivity in an urban estuary of the Salish Sea. They will consider how actual data do or do not support expected annual trends.
statistics, ecology, data, Excel, graphing, Biochemistry, Oceanography, marine ecosystems, marine ecology, descriptive statistics, long-term datasets, marine, Microsoft Excel, marine biology, plankton, Outliers, Marine Science, qbcc, Using Excel, phytoplankton, Create graphs, Interpret graphs, Concepts in Statistics, large dataset, explaining statistics, using statistics, Pacific Northwest, Salish Sea, primary productivity, water chemistry, estuary, graphing in Excel, formulas in Excel, chlorophyll, time-series plots, ocean
550
746
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01.2023