Project 1. Statistical graphics in the press. Graphs good and bad fill the news media. Some publications, such as USA Today, make particularly heavy use of graphs to present data. Collect several graphs (at least five) from newspapers and magazines (not from advertisements). Include some graphs that, in your opinion, represent good style and some that represent poor style or are misleading. Use your collection as examples in a brief essay about the clarity, accuracy, and attractiveness of graphs in the press.

Project 2. Roll your own regression. Choose two quantitative variables that you think have a roughly straight-line relationship. Gather data on these variables and do a statistical analysis: make a scatterplot, find the correlation, find the regression line (use a statistical calculator or software), and draw the line on your plot. Then write a report on your work. Some examples of suitable pairs of variables are the following:

Project 3. High school dropouts. Write a factual report on high school dropouts in the United States. The following are examples of questions you might address: Which states have the highest percentages of adults who did not finish high school? How do the earnings and employment rates of dropouts compare with those of other adults? Is the percentage who fail to finish high school higher among blacks and Hispanics than among whites?

The Census Bureau website will supply you with data. Go to www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/.

Project 4. Association is not causation. Write a snappy, attention-getting article on the theme that “association is not causation.’’ Use pointed but not-too-serious examples like those in Example 6 (page 348) and Exercise 15.30 (page 364) of Chapter 15, or this one: there is an association between long hair and height (because women tend to have longer hair than men but also tend to be shorter), but cutting a person’s hair will not make him or her taller. Be clear, but don’t be technical. Imagine that you are writing for high school students.

Project 5. Military spending. Here are data on U.S. spending for national defense for the fiscal years between 1940 and 2010 from the Statistical Abstract. You may want to look in the latest volume for data from the most recent year. You can also find the amounts for every year between 1940 and the present at www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/. See the pdf file available by clicking on Historical Tables. Look in Section 3 of this pdf file. The units are billions of dollars (this is serious money).

Write an essay that describes the changes in military spending in real terms during this period from just before World War II until a decade after the end of the cold war. Do the necessary calculations and write a brief description that ties military spending to the major military events of this period: World War II (1941–1945), the Korean War (1950–1953), the Vietnam War (roughly 1964–1975), the end of the cold war after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the U.S. war with Iraq (beginning in March 2003). You may want to look at years not included in the table to help you as you write your essay.

Project 6. Your pulse rate. What is your “resting pulse rate’’? Of course, even if you measure your pulse rate while resting, it may vary from day to day and with the time of day. Measure your resting pulse rate at least six times each day (spaced throughout the day) for at least four days. Write a discussion that includes a description of how you made your measurements and an analysis of your data. Based on the data, what would you say when someone asks you what your resting pulse rate is? (If several students do this project, you can discuss variation in pulse rate among a group of individuals as well.)

Project 7. The dates of coins. Coins are stamped with the year in which they were minted. Collect data from at least 50 coins of each denomination: pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. Write a description of the distribution of dates on coins now in circulation, including graphs and numerical descriptions. Are there differences among the denominations? Did you find any outliers?