Thursday, November 19, 2009

Teachable moment

Rita, a teacher at one of our local public high schools, emailed me earlier this week. Monday’s post Roll your own statistics caught her eye. She told me that she was a regular reader of my blog, and had gathered some of our data to create a project for the students in the computer applications class she teaches. She wondered whether I would be interested in seeing the assignment.

Are you kidding? Of course, I was interested. She sent the assignment along in her next email, and jokingly offered to grade my work if I completed the assignment. Now, how in the world could I pass that up? I skipped lunch, and did the assignment.

The students (and me) were given two years’ data by month on thefts from vehicles—one of our most common and significant crimes. The job was to format an Excel spreadsheet, and create a graph comparing the trends in 2008 and 2009. In order to complete the project, students would have to apply some basic Excel skills: create a new workbook, enter data, merge cells, insert rows, format cells, copy cells, calculate formulae, and design and format a line graph. It made a nice project for students with basic Excel skills moving towards the intermediate level.

The best part, though, was the “thought question” at the end of the assignment sheet: “What are some of the most effective strategies that can be used to avoid being the victim of this crime?” I gave Rita my lengthy list, but what I really liked was the idea of high school students—frequent victims of this crime—thinking about the things they can do to protect their car and their stuff. That’s a teachable moment, and I hope she is able to amuse the students in her class with the story of the police chief completing the same assignment they worked through.

P.S. Just for fun, make yourself a table of thefts from vehicles from 2002 to 2008, and look at the annual totals. That’s an eye-opener.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

LFA might be an even bigger issue with the Christmas season coming up. How many LFAs did we have from mall parking lots last "Black Friday"? LFAs from church lots on Dec. 25th? It's coming up on prime time for LFA.

Also, don't leave your car unlocked and running with the keys in it! Not even just to run in somewhere for a couple of minutes. Some 4-time convicted felon from Douglas County might just take advantage of the target of opportunity that was so generously provided.

Anonymous said...

Oh great now the chief is giving us homework. :P

Anonymous said...

PLEASE DON'T POST THIS COMMENT

I just wanted to point out two typos in your first paragraph. I wouldn't bother to point them out, but you're generally pretty good about this stuff and from what I know of you it seems as if you'd rather somebody tell you so that you can fix them than to leave them out there. :)



"Rita, a teacher at one of our local public high schools, emailed my earlier this week. Monday’s post Roll your own statistics caught her eye. She told me that she was a regular reader of my blog, and had gathered some of our data to create an project for the students in the computer applications class she teaches. She wondered whether I would be interested in seeing the assignment."

ARRRRG!!!! said...

People seem to steer clear of my car.

Maybe it's the bumper sticker.

Tom Casady said...

8:13 -6:23 -

Actually, over the past decade the peak months have been July and August. As an outdoor crime, LFA is probably effected by weather quite a bit. The trends you mention are real, I believe, just offset somewhat by the better weather conditions that prevail during the wee hours in the summer months.

Regarding second paragrah, that's a very good piece of advice (sigh).

8:13-

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

So what was your final grade? I hope better than a C.

Tom Casady said...

11:26 -

I took it pass / fail, and passed.

The Teacher said...

Don't be so modest, Chief; I told you that you had earned an A+! And I wasn't sucking up to beg favors, either, since I have never had a speeding ticket in my considerable years of driving and am, as far as I know, very law-abiding.

bekahcubed said...

Please forgive my lack of knowledge--could someone clue me in on what "LFA" is?

Anonymous said...

Bekahcubed-

Larceny From Auto

ARRRRG!!!! said...

LFA is either Larceny From Auto or this.

Anonymous said...

It is rather interesting for me to read that article. Thanx for it. I like such topics and anything that is connected to them. I definitely want to read more soon.