Brazil and New Zealand are population outliers, but have nearly identical medal counts.South Korea/Austria and Canada/Norway pair up nicely also, despite being physically quite distant.France and Great Britain are not only physical neighbors, but are medal neighbors as well.By graphing the information, we get some cool patterns that would otherwise have been invisible. This scatterplot compares total Olympic medals vs population in millions using nine countries. Here are a few sample graphs I made to whet your appetite. And, of course, we’d want to see some written analysis: “What hidden patterns did you uncover?” Graphing Samples
#Norway best olympic medal totals series#
The product can be as simple as a series of graphs, either on graph paper or created in a spreadsheet. A natural technique for this expert is to take raw data and graph it, visually spotting interesting trends. We’re really working with pure statistics here, so perhaps our students take on the role of a statistician, looking for hidden patterns underneath the data. Doing this takes the emphasis away from repetitive calculations (which can become tedious) and places it on analysis (which is creative and exciting). Kids should form generalizations about size vs medal count, summer vs winter performance, medals vs economics, etc.Ī bonus application for all ages is to use a spreadsheet to track data, make calculations, and create graphs. work with large numbers, ordering, adding, or subtracting.Īnd everyone should be analyzing the data they generate to look for patterns.Use this data in any way that fits your students’ needs. Want to try gross domestic product or human development index? Do countries with stronger economies perform better in the Olympics?.Here’s a table ranking countries by population or countries by area.Wikipedia has an awesome all-time Olympic Medal table, sortable by summer, winter, and total medals.Of course, the internet has us covered for all of this data: What if we compare medals to other data, like gross domestic product, human development index, or the age of each country? Do any of these factors tie into Olympic performance?.How do countries vary by summer and winter performance?.How do we measure size? Area or population? Is it significantly different?.Can we rank Olympic performance not just by medals, but by medals compared to a country’s size?.
The Wall Street Journal article provided a great start for the intriguing conflict:
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