Whereas most of my class time is devoted to the specifics of performing and decoding inferential exams, primary statistical literacy and considering are equally necessary classes.
Listed below are a few of the big-picture literacy concepts I need my college students to consider in my stats courses:
1. How can we use information to know patterns to make predictions?
2. How can we separate the sign from the noise?
3. How can information really inform actual life and present occasions?
4. How can we repurpose current information in a world the place information is in all places?
Right here is an instance I JUST discovered that addresses all of those concepts.
The Pentagon Pizza Report is an X account that displays Google “Fashionable instances” information in pizzerias close to the Pentagon to foretell army exercise.
The X account asserts that unusually excessive, later-than-normal foot site visitors at pizzerias close to the Pentagon (x) might point out that Pentagon army workers are working late and must seize take-out for dinner(y).
Most not too long ago, the web site detected a surge in pizza consumption on June 12, 2025, proper earlier than the battle between Israel and Iran heated up.
As reported by The Guardian:
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/13/pentagon-pizza-delivery-israel-iran-attack |
Pentagon Pizza Report makes use of Google “Fashionable instances” information, which is freely out there and used to 1. set up a enterprise’s typical reputation over the course of the info and a pair of. observe surges at a given enterprise. Google gives this information for a lot of, many alternative areas.
For instance, right here is the “Fashionable instances” information for a Tim Horton’s in Erie, PA, early on a Sunday morning.
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| Google “Fashionable Instances” information from a Tim Horton’s |
Then it was actually quiet in any respect of those pizza outlets:
Was there a dinner break for everybody working late on the Pentagon, and did that dinner break wind down round 7p? Was there a gathering that began after 7:10 that many individuals wanted to attend? Inferences abound.
So do stats class classes.
1. You possibly can sofa this instance with two different creatively used second-hand information examples.
2. There are additionally many variables to account for within the multicausal world. Along with pizza, the account tracks a homosexual bar close to the Pentagon. And the homosexual bar was busy. That is cited as a battle as a result of when individuals on the Pentagon work late, they are not going to the homosexual bar. HOWEVER…it’s June, so it’s Satisfaction, so of us are in all probability out for that even when there are additionally of us working exhausting on the Pentagon.
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| https://x.com/PenPizzaReport/standing/1933664131066048700 |
3. Problem your college students to create a analysis research to check if”Fashionable instances” information really predicts army exercise. What would it is advisable do? Monitor all of this information hourly, for a yr, ready for information tales about army exercise? Would the predictive potential of this information be hindered by the clandestine nature of some army actions? Whereas pizza is an effective, cheap option to feed a bunch of individuals, what could possibly be tracked to search for smaller army operations? May you determine massive, recognized army actions within the final 5 yr and discover archival “Fashionable instances” information? THIS is the kind of considering our college students must study to have interaction in to grasp their statistical literacy and considering.
