Warm-up Activity - Is That A Fact? - Children Gunned Down Statistic

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Lesson Ideas
Warm-up Activities
Is That A Fact?

Every year since 1950, the number of children gunned down has doubled.

So claims one of the more dubious social statistics ever published. If you aren't certain what's wrong with this statement, do one or more of the following:

work through the classroomtools.com activity Double, Double, Toil and Trouble
read Joel Best's Damned Lies and Statistics
read the excerpt from Best's book published in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Listen to Joel Best and David Murray interviewed by Ira Flato on Talk of the Nation Science Friday (June 8, 2001). To hear the program, you'll need the Real Player plug-in installed for your web browser.

To help your students come to an understanding of large numbers, look at the following Classroomtools.com activities.

For resources to use in creating activities that teach about numbers, look at my list of interesting numbers

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