A New Statistical Adventure with Explorística 2.0
J. Pinto Martins
Pedro Campos
Statistical Edutainment - an ISLP webinar in conjunction with IASE
Education + Entertainment = Edutainment
Edutainment materials are designed to educate through entertainment and seem to be important in the teaching of science.
Statistics Portugal was one of the first statistical agencies in Europe to create links with educational communities.
ALEA (http://www.alea.pt/) has started in 1999 as the result of a cooperative project involving Statistics Portugal, the Portuguese Ministry of Education, and a Secondary School.
The previous version (version 1.0) of Explorística has been created in 2013 by the Portuguese Statistical Society, in cooperation with Statistics Portugal and been supported by Ciência Viva, the Portuguese agency for the dissemination of scientific culture.
A new itinerant exploratory exhibition, virtual and physical, consisting of various interactive modules with the aim of bringing the fundamentals of Statistics and Probability to basic and secondary schools and improve the general standard of statistical literacy among young people
The main concepts to be taught are:
survey samples and census
location and dispersion measures (mean, median, standard deviation)
graphs (box and whiskers, bar plots, histograms)
random and non-random sampling
relative frequency
probability.
Explorística 2.0
The version 2.0 is based on storytelling and is available since 2020, where new physical and digital modules can be played locally or in distance mode.
Teachers and students
upper basic and secondary school
(12 to 18 years old).
Several interactive modules, inspired in different episodes told by Sebastian Odd, a detective interested in solving the mysteries of statistics, and related to the phases of the statistical process:
Explorística 2.0
The version 2.0 is based on storytelling and is available since 2020, where new physical and digital modules can be played locally or in distance mode.
All those modules (games) were developed and made available in three environments
Physical modules + Web + mobile
Modules that make up Exploristica 2.0
It is necessary to operate a watch manufacturing machine.
Some watches from this factory are defective and it is necessary to control the machine pressure and evaluate the quality control of the whole production.
It is intended for players to be aware of statistical measures that are mostly used in industry control charts (mean, median and standard deviation).
Modules that make up Exploristica 2.0
A Cluedo style game, where probability studies should help to solve a crime.
Dr. Odd was murdered in his mansion. Five weapons, which must be discovered, may have been used in this crime.
On the other hand, there are six suspects of being the murder. Knowing the probabilities of each weapon being the murder weapon and each suspect using each weapon, weigth size age players must calculate which of the suspects is most likely to be the murderer.
This module aims to explain the use of conditioned probabilities and the usefulness of the Venn diagram in this context.
Modules that make up Exploristica 2.0
With elections approaching, the president of the parish council, D. Stimacione (the villain), wants to know if he can be re-elected.
With the help of Conga, the gorilla, a sample is collected, firstly for convenience and then at random, showing how different the results are in these two types of sample data collection, when trying to estimate the expected number of votes for D. Stimacione.
Modules that make up Exploristica 2.0
This module consists of a transparent dome. Inside the dome, there are 100 little cubes on a surface with a circle drawn inside a square. The player presses and holds a button that throws and shuffles around the little cubes as they fly inside the dome and fall randomly.
The player counts how many cubes fell outside the circle. The player verifies that the relationship between the number of cubes in both areas is Pi/4. The player must repeat the procedure to verify that the relation between the cubes inside and outside the circle is roughly constant.
The challenge is to relate the result to keys that have numbers inscribed, to find the one that opens a secret door.
Modules that make up Exploristica 2.0
After a bank robbery, pieces of cloth are found in a nearby garden and several suspects are arrested whose pants were torn by a dog as they ran through that garden.
The player must collect pieces of fabric in the place so that they can be used as a representative sample.
Based on the pattern showed by this sample he tries to identify the robber looking at his torn clothing.
Modules that make up Exploristica 2.0
A submarine trip in a lake where the user must pilot the submarine and catch specimens (one at a time) with a claw at the front of the submarine.
Participants weigh, measure, and identify the sex and age of each specimen they capture (and then return to water).
After this data collection, an explanation is presented on how to draw a diagram of extremes and quartiles.
Exploristica 2.0 was supported by DIGICOM
a project of the European Statistical System (ESS).
The goal of DIGICOM was to modernize the communication and dissemination of European statistics.
This is achieved by exploring and developing innovative dissemination products and services based on experiences within the ESS and concrete needs of European statistics users.
Thanks for your attention
J. Pinto Martins
Pedro Campos