Thursday, June 5, 2008

vacation ends, summer begins

Summer session begins Monday June 9, so today I'm putting in some hours whipping the on-line class into shape. Except that is soooooo boring, and I find it necessary take breaks and find other more interesting things on the Internet -- like checking out the latest posts of all my favorite bloggers.

Also I made use of the weather/climate website of the College of Agriculture at the University of Kentucky to find the average monthly temperatures for the past two and a half years (and how those temperatures deviated from "normal"). The average for May 2008 was 62 degrees Fahrenheit which was six degrees lower than the "normal" (long term average). However, if the last couple of days are any indication, June is going to come out on the above normal side, as summer heat and humidity have finally made their appearance in eastern Kentucky.

I plan to enter the temperature data in a spreadsheet with the data I have on our family electricity use for the same 2 and a half years. Not only will it help me look at our electricity use -- with the goal of reducing it -- but I can have some fun data to share with my students the next time I teach statistics.

5 comments:

Jessica said...

Ah yes...the rabbit hole. I find myself there too. Speaking of which...I fell down it looking for a way to get to WV without traveling through OH and I came across this: http://www.kentuckyroads.com/letcher_county/

I know that you have talked about how dangerous the roads around you are because of the coal trucks. Soooo...I bookmarked it thinking that maybe you could use it somehow or someway...

The humidity is here. Blah. It seems as if Spring came and went in a week.

sgreerpitt said...

Jessica - thanks, that's an interesting page. Especially the part where it says "the state won't pave Little Shepard Trail" and "the state IS paving Little Shepard Trail."

Qaro said...

Oooohh. You teach statistics? So Cool!

I love my job but sometimes I dream of being in quality control so I could do statistics AND walk around to check things. But they probably get all their data delivered to their desks as well. : )

sgreerpitt said...

I really enjoy teaching statistics; teaching a concrete skill is very different than teaching the more abstract thinking and analysis required by sociology.

Qaro said...

This is interesting. I've been going back and forth, wondering about the difficulties and differences between a concrete skill vs. abstract thinking and analysis.

I think to be useful, the concrete skill needs the abstract analysis: What should be measured, what do the results mean, if there's a problem how could it be prevented, what are some steps we could think about for improvement?

I don't have the resources for any Six Sigma initiative, but still a simple Z-score query has saved many a flawed PO from being received uncorrected.

Yay, stats! : )