Statistics

You will continue your analysis of the data set you obtained from the NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, in particular the two winters you were using in Module 2. Recall for Module 2 you created two new tabs with subsets of the full data set. Each tab contains the daily snowfall data for December 1 through March 31 for a different winter at a particular weather station in the county you selected and the associated histograms you created last module.

For each year of these two winters of data, use Excel to find the Summary Statistics of the snowfall. At the end of Chapter 3 in the textbook there is a Tech Tips section with instructions for doing so in Excel. When finding these descriptive statistics use the Output Option called Output Range. Select a range of cells in your worksheet that are not already being used (off to the right of everything else, yet near the top of the worksheet). Thus, the summary statistics results will appear on the same worksheet as the histogram you inserted last module. For additional help with StatCrunch see here.

For your discussion post, address all of the following. Compare the average snowfall for each winter. Do these averages differ? What, specific to your data set, may have caused these averages to differ? Compare the median snowfall for each winter. Do these medians differ? What, specific to your data set, may have caused these medians to differ? Compare the standard deviation of the snowfall for each winter. Do these standard deviations differ? What, specific to your data set, may have caused these standard deviations to differ? What do you think the best measure of center and spread are for this data set. Simple sentences and multiple paragraphs might make your discussion clearer to others. Attach your Excel file to the discussion.

In addition to your main post, you are to respond to at least two other students’ main posts. Substantive responses to other students’ main posts might include the following: (1) a detailed comparison of your results to their results including proposing why the results might (or might not) differ between your two regions, or (2) detailed and polite recommendations for improvements should their work be incorrect or not fully meet the assignment’s requirements.

Grading for this assignment will be based on the Discussion Participation Rubric in the Course Information Tab.