Florence Nightingale's statistics: a maths EPQ idea
A title to start from
How did Florence Nightingale use statistics and diagrams to change policy, and would her diagrams pass today's standards?
Why it works as an EPQ
Her polar area diagrams are famous; you can redraw them from the data and judge them as statistical graphics.
Scope and difficulty
Accessible. Accessible. One data set redrawn several ways.
The maths
Builds on these A Level topics: Sampling and data.
You would learn:
- Polar area diagrams
- Rates versus counts
- Principles of good data visualisation
One possible plan
- Find the published mortality data.
- Redraw it as her diagram and as two modern charts.
- Judge which shows the message most honestly.
- Assess the diagrams' influence using historical sources.
Pitfalls
- Area misjudged as radius in polar diagrams.
- Hagiography.
Where to start reading
- Search for: Nightingale rose diagram data
- The Art of Statistics (David Spiegelhalter)
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