Thoughts on the Final Project

My guess is that most of you will come to the project with a data set, e.g. data points (x,y,z), with a goal of establishing a deterministic relationship between the data of the form

This is really the primary subject matter of chapter 4.

• Study why so many California power plants are off line during this severe power shortage: are owners relying on short supply to raise prices to consumers?
• As a teacher, I'm interested in the relationship between the time at which exams are turned in and the scores they receive. What motivates a student to get up and turn in the exam? Certainly confidence, exhaustion, etc....
• How would the introduction of a bottle bill in Kentucky impact the trash stream? (These sorts of public policy decisions are often based on mathematical models.) Alternatively, what will be the impact of Gov. Patton's proposal to mandate trash pick-up in all counties? Here's a site....
• There are populations that one can study in small spaces, e.g. flour beetles. Find such a population and apply the techniques of chapters 1 and 2 to it. One would like a population whose numbers rise and fall quickly! E.g., one could study how temperature affects reproduction.

In addition:

• Grading for final project
• Grading rubric for poster presentation