Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.

Exercise 1

www.usa.gov/statistics

Discuss in depth the uses of the data available on this website.  Explore the U.S. Census Data and Statistics link, followed by the “latest QuickFacts statistics and estimates”, the Population Clock, and other Census information available.  Can you find an examples of frequency?  A cross-tab? Percent? Percentile? Rate? Mean?  Standard deviation?  Locate and document examples for each of these.

Exercise 2

www.nij.gov/topics/technology/maps/Pages/crimestat.aspx

CrimeStat IV is the most recent version of CrimeStat, a spatial statistics program for the analysis of crime incident locations.  CrimeStat is Windows-based and interfaces with most desktop GIS programs.  It provides statistical tools to aid law enforcement agencies and researchers in their efforts.  Many police departments use CrimeStat.  There are more than 100 statistical routines available in the free program.  For this exercise, you do not need to download the software, but rather read through this site using the link to examine some of the statistical routines available to users of the software.  Compare these more complex routines and capabilities to those presented in the text (frequency, percent, rate, etc.).  Speak to the uses of these more sophisticated capabilities.

Exercise 3

http://bobhall.tamu.edu/FiniteMath/Module8/Introduction.html

Use the following numbers:  3, 5, 7, 11, 15, 15, 18, 22, 56, 74, calculate the following: mode, median, mean, range and variance.  Then, assign each of those numbers to a crime type (e.g. “3 Murders, 5 Rapes, 7 Robberies, etc.) and create a frequency and percentage of Crime by Type table.