Clean Close Shave

Take a look at the infographic.  What do you see? What do you think?  What do you wonder? [caption id="attachment_16099" align="aligncenter" width="420"] Image from West Coast Shaving. Clicking on this image will show it expandable in a new window. Just click a second time on the image to expand it.[/caption]

In this lesson students compare NFL QB rating of quarterbacks with and without facial hair.  This task can be used to explore a number of math ideas such as sampling, causation versus correlation, misleading data, measures of central tendency, variability and data visualization.  Questions to consider:

• Is this enough data to definitively say that facial hair improves quarterback performance?
• How might we collect a stronger set of data?
• Does facial hair cause improved quarterback performance or is it a correlation?
• How can we collect data to show that facial hair reduces quarterback performance?
• Which measure of central tendency best represents the data?
• What type of graph or plot can be used to display the data?

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2014/11/20/research-shows-tom-brady-plays-better-with-facial-hair/