Using Internet Data Meaningfully	University of Wisconsin - La Crosse

Lessons for Science, Mathematics, and Social Studies Teachers

Would you like to incorporate some of these lessons into your curriculum?

These lessons were written cooperatively by experienced high school and university faculty to demonstrate how you can enhance your courses and inspire your students by using interesting, up-to-date data available on the Internet.

Teachers have routinely been using the Internet as a sort of huge encyclopedia.  If you need current information about some subject, whether it is about Jupiter or chocolate or pollution, you can usually find some reliable source on the Internet to give you the information you want.

But you can also find billions of bytes of numerical data on the Internet, such as world population data for the past 100 years, or this year's new car prices in the U.S., or ozone levels for the past 30 days in some city.  The vast amount of numbers in cyberspace is mind-boggling.  But what to do with it?  How can we use this data in worthwhile and relevant ways?  These lessons show how students can access, analyze, and draw meaningful conclusions in their subject matter from numerical data.

Although each lesson was written with a specific course in mind, most can be adapted for use in many other courses.  For example, a mathematics teacher may be interested in the social studies lesson "Currency: An Economic Indicator";  or a social studies teacher may be interested in the science lesson "Nuclear Energy: Current and Future Use"; or a science teacher may be interested in the social studies lesson "Standards of Living: Comparing Different Countries".  If your school values cooperative course work, teachers of different subjects may easily share these lessons.

The following lessons are available. You may download them and use them free of charge in your courses.

Title	Suggested Courses	Description
Acid Rain	Chemistry, Biology, Ecology, Mathematics	Research the causes and effects of acid rain and investigate acidity data of surface water for different areas of the United States.
Air Pressure	Earth Science, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics	Access a weather site to obtain current atmospheric pressure readings for various cities in the United States and construct line and isobar graphs.
Age Structure Studies	History, Geography, Social Studies, Government, Health, Mathematics	Obtain age distribution population data for your city, county or state and compare with that of other places in the United States and the world.
Baseball Statistics	Mathematics	Who is the best all-time home run hitter?  Find sports data on the Internet to answer this question.
Buying a House	Mathematics, Business, Economics, Finance	Compare home prices in your city with other areas, find out current interest rates, and how much a mortgage for the home of your choice would be.
Company Slogan Recognition and Economic Performance	Economics, Business, Mathematics	Conduct a survey about popular advertising slogans. Then determine if there is any correlation between a company's slogan and their economic performance.
Currency - An Economic Indicator	Economics, Geography, History, Business, Government, Mathematics	Judge the health and strength of a country's financial well-being by studying the value of its currency.
Displaying Salary Statistics with Graphs	Mathematics, Business, Economics, Finance, Career Planning	Access salary statistics on the Internet and display this data using different types of graphs.
Gravity Variation	Physics, Earth Science, Mathematics	The acceleration of gravity varies slightly from place to place. Find actual gravity measurements and construct a contour map.
How are Students Doing on the AP Exams?	Mathematics, Career Planning	Look at the distribution of scores for different AP subjects and determine if these scores are statistically different for the various subjects.
Invisible Invaders: The Spread of Disease	Biology, Health, Mathematics	Choose a disease caused by bacteria or viruses.  Then collect data to see how many people have the disease and where they live.
Nuclear Energy: Current and Future Use	Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Geography	Some countries plan to increase their nuclear use in the future, while others plan to decrease. Find reasons for these changes and anticipated capacities
Olympic Records	Physics, Mathematics	Track and field records continue to be broken. Find data on these events and learn how physics principles can be applied.
The People Bomb	Sociology, History, Geography, Economics, Biology, Mathematics	Look at population growth rates of various countries.  Try to predict growth patterns in the coming century.
Postal Math	Mathematics, Economics, History, Government, Finance	Find out how postal rates are calculated now and how they were calculated in the past.  Compare postal rate hikes with the Consumer Price Index.
Standards of Living: Comparing Different Countries	Economics, History, Government, Sociology, Geography, Mathematics, Ecology	Determine measures that describe a "standard of living", access current data for these measures and devise a ranking system to compare countries.
Traffic Fatalities	Mathematics, Finance, Economics	Find information about the age distribution of fatal accident victims. Make tables and graphs and calculate basic summary statistics.
United States Immigration History	History, Sociology, Government, Mathematics	Find immigration data since the time of the American Revolution, identify times of greatest immigration movements and relate to their historical contexts.
We the People	Government, History, Sociology, Mathematics	Study election results in the United States during this past century.  See how voting patterns are related to such factors as income, gender, or occupation.
Weather Data and Internet Information Services	Earth Science, Physics, Mathematics	Obtain weather data by e-mail from an information service.  Determine how relative humidity and temperature are related.
Wisconsin Timber Wolves	Biology, Ecology, History, Mathematics	Learn about the history of the Wisconsin timber wolf, find data on their past and current populations and predict future population.

Please send comments or questions to: skala.hele@uwlax.edu  or write to Dr. Helen Skala, Mathematics Department, UW-La Crosse, 1725 State St., La Crosse, WI 54601

This project was supported by a UW VIT²AL System grant.

These lessons were designed and written by: Peter Csiascek and Karen Lown from Holmen High School, David Johnson and Judy Young from Logan High School, Robert Hoar and Helen Skala from UW-La Crosse.

Copywrite, Mathematics Department, UW-La Crossse, June, 1999