Some Good ideas

As many of you probably are, I am currently putting the finishing touches on this years batch of Internal Assessment projects. It always seems like a monster exercise, but one that is worth it in the end. This year, I am particularly pleased and the main reason is that I feel that all the students in my class got lots out of their projects. The understood the goals and the exercise really felt like it is supposed to philosophically. It isn't that it normally doesn't just particularly so this year. Marking the projects was a real pleasure because students had done some really interesting work and because they have paid attention to my advice! I thought I would quickly share some of the topics they chose.

Youtube - inspired by the picture above, this was a great project about you tube channels. Who runs them? What are they about? How many subscribers - and so on. There is so much data there and youtube really plays a part in peoples lives these days one way or another. 

Flickr - What makes a photograph popular on Flickr - again, these websites collect so much data and we can be sure that they are analysing it so it seems ripe for students to do so.

Dance - This seemed like a challenge at first, but this student worked really hard to collect some useful primary data on flexibility and then looked to see what types of people (ie dancers) might be more flexible.

GDP and CO2 emissions - is there a link?

Book publishing - These were some interesting stats I had never seen before. Data on how many books are published in a given year and the literacy rates for different countries.

Spotify - More online data collection - what makes a song popular.

Broadway - what makes more money and how, musicals or plays?

Films, cars, smoking and divorce rates made up the rest and all round I really enjoyed the diversity! No non stats projects this year, but students chose their own areas of interest and I, for one, was pleased with the results!