Arbutus Elementary Students Win Statistics Contest

Three teams of Arbutus Elementary School students won first place, third place, and an honorable mention in a poster competition sponsored by the American Statistical Association (ASA) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM).

The contest challenges students to create posters representing statistical data that they collected, an analysis of that data, and conclusions they drew from the data.

The purpose of a statistical poster is to visually communicate a story drawn from data, according to the ASA.

Posters were judged on: overall impact, technical aspects, message clarity, appropriateness of the graphs for the data, and creativity.

The first-place team – comprised of Carley Boarman, Bailey Lober, Nicholas Palacorolla, and Zachary Smith – created a poster titled “Pizza, Pizza.” Students collected data on personal preferences of pizza. The three criteria examined included flavor, price and commercial advertising influences. The outcome suggested that those surveyed chose pizza based on personal taste above all.

The third-place poster, titled “Whirl it, Arch it, Loop it,” it focused on the features of fingerprints. Team members Kathryn Crummitt, Hailee Emge, Trinity Piller, and Rebecca Warfield collected data on characteristics of the fingerprints of community-based boys and girls compared to the national average. The data was analyzed and represented in a circle graph and bar graph, revealing that students at their school align with national averages.

The honorable mention group focused on a comparison of two major pet food distributors. Team members Kayleigh Griffith, Corinne Hall, Alyssa Hoffman, and Jaden Karpoff analyzed the pricing points and were able to determine that there was no clear winner when it came to choosing brands of pet food based on price.

The regional competition, coordinated by the Washington Statistical Society (WSS), was open to students from Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

The teams, along with their math teacher, Josh Merrill, will be recognized at a dinner hosted by WSS on June 16.