Numerical Methods Comparing Pastime Activities 
Statistical Topic: 
Numerical computations used to describe characteristics of sample data sets are called statistics (descriptive statistics).  Three measures of the middle or central tendency are the mean, median and the mode.  Four measures of spread or variation are the range, variance, standard deviation and inter-quartile range.  Two measures of position are the quartiles and z-scores.
Student Issue: 
The time spent in pastime activities helps us truly enjoy life.  These types of activities have recreational, educational and entertainment value. 
Data Set:
Collect data from each student and filling out the following table:  Table 1.  Class Data for Pastime Activites.
Goal of the Data Analysis Lab: 
Do the numerical descriptive statistics suggest a difference in the number of hours spent last week watching TV compared to the number of hours spent exercising?
Statistical Techniques: 
  1. Create two frequency histograms with the same scale (same classes on the x-axis and same y-axis) for  the number of hours spent last week watching TV compared to the number of hours spent exercising. Make sure to title each plot and label appropriately.
  2. Compute the  mean, median, range and standard deviation for the number of hours spent last week watching TV and again for the number of hours spent exercising.  Place these statistics in a table that makes it easy for the reader to compare the differences in statistics computed on numbers of hours spent in these two pastime activities. 
  3. Starting with the minimum and maximum for each sample, determine if any observations are considered outliers using z-scores.  Explain how you know a value is an outlier.
  4. Write a descriptive paragraph explaining the results from this table. 
Social Commentary:
  1. What other types of activities did you spent time doing last week? 
  2. Are you doing what makes your life most enjoyable or are there other reasons why your times are scheduled this way?