NOTE: Students need a TI-84 Plus calculator.

Mark Twain popularized the amusing quote “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” That speaks to the power – and potential abuse of power – that comes with analyzing data. Learning to work with data, as you do in this class, is an invaluable skill in many, many fields. You will progress from effective data representations through statistical inference, touching probability, linear regression, and experiment/survey design along the way. At year-end, you will be more qualified to critically assess the results of studies, how much weight and validity can be given to a particular set of data, and what conclusions someone can draw from the information provided. Some sections of this class make use of the open-source statistical software R and RStudio for visualization, randomization, and simulation.