Supermarkets, Highways, and Natural Gas Production: Statistics and Social Justice

Abstract

We present several modules that address social justice issues in an introductory statistics course. The activities consider possible disparities of housing location, language spoken at home, and job sector as they relate to, respectively, access to healthy foods, air pollution via proximity to traffic, and health concerns via proximity to fracking sites. Statistical content includes basic descriptive statistics, survey design and analysis, contingency tables, independence, various quantiles, and hypothesis testing. We describe the assignments, which satisfy some GAISE Guidelines, and we report on their implementation. Along the way, we share the challenges we faced and overcame as novices in the social justice community.

Keywords:

• Undergraduate introductory statistics
• social justice
• student activities
• health disparities
• statistical literacy
• real-world contexts
• GAISE

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John Ross

John Ross is a visiting assistant professor of mathematics at Southwestern University. He earned his Ph.D. and M.A. in mathematics at Johns Hopkins University, following a B.A. in Mathematics at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. His research is in geometric analysis, answering questions of special manifolds that arise under curvature flows. He enjoys overseeing undergraduate research and teaching in an inquiry-based format.

Therese Shelton

Therese Shelton is an associate professor of mathematics at Southwestern University. She earned a Ph.D. in mathematical sciences at Clemson University, following a M.S. in mathematical sciences at Clemson University and a B.S. in mathematics at Texas A&M University. Her current research focuses on mathematical modeling, especially in biological systems. She is thrilled to help students see the many connections between mathematics and other subjects, as well as the beauty of mathematics as a creative intellectual endeavor. She enjoys her family and collecting quirky objects to use in the classroom.