Abstracts

Exploring data on a rare threatened bird - the rock wren

Ian Westbrooke
Department of Conservation

I will introduce a small threatened native bird - the rock wren, and provide resources on the bird itself to set the context. I will then explore a small dataset exactly as it came to me from remote mountains in Fiordland on this fascinating bird's population status. There are 24 numbers - counts from 12 grids of 25 hectares in each of 1984/5 and 2005. This data gives a great opportunity to create tables and graphs, and calculate means, by hand or using a tool like Excel, tasks suitable for both junior and senior classes. For year thirteen students, the data poses the question asked by the person who sent the data - what is a confidence interval for the average change in the population per grid square. A confidence interval can be created using either traditional or resampling techniques.


Session 1d, Statistics Education Resources: 15:40 — 16:00, Room 446

Presentation Program