This is based on a survey carried out by the (usually reputable) polling organisation YouGov. Here is my suggestion of how to use this as a lesson.
The lesson materials (but not the answers) are also
available on this PowerPoint
I gave out a questionnaire first:
Fight!
Which of the
following animals, if any, do you think you could beat in a fight if you were
unarmed?
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Rat |
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Lion |
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House cat |
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Gorilla |
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Medium sized dog |
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Chimpanzee |
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Large dog |
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King Cobra |
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Kangaroo |
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Elephant |
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Eagle |
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Crocodile |
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Grizzly bear |
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Goose |
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Wolf |
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Which order
do you think people will put them in overall?
(easiest to
beat = 1, hardest = 15)
Collect the data as a class. How representative is the sample? Will our data reflect the national data well?
Here is an article from Newsweek (a US news magazine):
A Surprising Number of
Americans Think They Could Beat Wild Animals in a Fight
A 2021 YouGov survey had revealed that a surprising number of Americans
think they could win an unarmed fight against a variety of wild animals.
Reassuringly, the percentage of Americans confident about winning an
unarmed fight goes down, the larger the animal.
Most Americans—72 percent—believe they could beat a rat in a fight,
which despite the rodent's large teeth, could perhaps be feasible. However,
some foolhardy people still believe they stand a chance against some of the
scariest animals in Animal Kingdom, such as the grizzly bear, and the
crocodile.
It is a criminal offense to hurt
animals. Animal cruelty is a federal crime. The animals mentioned below are
generally of no threat to humans unless provoked.
Could You Beat a Bear in a Fight?
Americans are not confident in their
abilities to beat a grizzly bear in a fight. Only 6 percent believe
that they could win. Grizzly bears can stand at a height of up to 8 feet, and
the males can weigh up to 1,700 pounds.
They are faster, stronger, better equipped with both teeth and claws,
and they have a much higher level of protection with thick fur, skin, fat
layers and thicker stronger bones. So both offensively and defensively we are
no match for them.
Could You
Beat a Crocodile in a Fight?
A bold 9 percent of Americans think
they could take on a crocodile, the biggest reptile in the world. Some can
reach 20 feet. Males over 17 feet weigh from about 1,760 pounds to 2,200
pounds. Considering that one of the strongest men in the world, Iranian
weightlifter Hossein Rezazadeh, was able to lift only 579 pounds, you can see
what you're up against.
Possible questions:
Q1) How does your personal order
compare with the national figures for the USA?
Q2) How does the class percentage
compare with the USA figures?
(What types of correlation might be
useful here?)
Q3) In the Newsweek article, what is
unusual about the units that are used?
Q4) Covert the units to metric.
Q5) How do you think people in the UK
will compare to those from the US?
Answers:
A1&A2) It may be useful to use
Spearman’s Rank Correlation Coefficient for Q1 (to compare the rankings of the animals),
and the PMCC for Q2 to compare the percentages.
It seems unlikely that the percentages will be close, because in class
we have such a small sample size, and it may not be a representative sample because
everyone is roughly the same age and lives in roughly the same place.
A3) The article says Grizzly bears are 8 feet tall
and weigh 1700 pounds. The units are
what we would call “imperial units” and which are used in the USA. They call them “units”, “British units”, or “customary
units”.
A4)
1 foot is approx 30cm, so 8 feet is about 2.4m.
1700 pounds (1700 lb) can be
converted as follows: There are 14 pounds
in a stone and 1 stone is about 6.4kg.
Alternatively, use 2.2 lb = 1kg.
The bear is about 120 stone (!), or 770kg.
For the crocodile, 20 feet is about 6
metres, and 2200 lb is approx 1000kg, which is 1 tonne.
Hossein Rezazadeh can lift about
260kg.
Now show the table below from the
original YouGov data:
Q6) Which figure was used in the graph?
A6) The 72% was used.
(Is it reasonable to lump the ‘don’t knows’ in with ‘I could not beat…’?)
Here is one graph that was tweeted out:
Q7) Comment on the graph and the data.
A7) Comments might
include:
About twice as many Brits were asked compared to
Americans. The data was collected a
month apart. Brits were generally much
more cautious! For a rat the difference
appears to be about 6%, and for a lion the difference appears to be about
6%. But that means only a small fraction
more Americans thought they could beat a rat, but that about four times as many
thought they could be a lion.
Here is a final graph about the same original data:
Q8) Comment on this graph
A8) Comments might include: Men are always more confident
than women from the same country … except for the lion.
As the headline suggests, for the more dangerous animals, US
women are more confident they could win than GB men.
Compare the cat and the rat data with the previous
graph. The GB men are the most confident
group overall. Does this change the way
we might interpret the previous graph?
Final thoughts: We could return to the class data that was collected at the start of the lesson. This Quibans shows the importance of: the sample size, the sample that is used and the way the data is analysed and presented.
https://www.newsweek.com/surprising-americans-beat-wild-animals-fight-experts-1691793
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/mygotrlqrg/YouGov%20-%20Humans%20vs%20animals%20UK.pdf
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/07vgk5e81j/YouGov%20-%20Human%20vs%20animal%20fight.pdf
