.jpg)
Public Health Depends on Us
In this project, students analyzed public health data from sources like the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps to determine whether two metrics were mathematically dependent. They created an infographic poster and presented their findings to an audience of peers and parents.
​
Essential Question
How can we mathematically connect public health factors to health outcomes?
​
Student Work
PBL Design Notes
Students utilized their voice and choice by exploring public health issues that were interesting and important to them. For example, one student chose to investigate Physical Inactivity vs Poor Mental Health days because they believed that the lack of gym facilities or PE classes at our high school was impacting students' mental wellbeing. They used this data to petition our administration to partner with a local gym so students could access the facilities. Another student explored health metrics related to Diabetes Prevalence, since they had a family member with diabetes and they were curious to learn more about demographics across the state of California. In this way, students authentically connected math to the real world and engaged in personalized research and analysis.
​
If I were to do this project again, I would try to find a strong community partner to collaborate with, like the Community Health Statistics Unit at San Diego Health Services or another organization that works closely in the school community. A community partner could help us with a stronger launch (like a field trip or guest speaker) and a more authentic, public-facing exhibition space.
Content Standards
HSS-CP.A.1 Describe events as subsets of a sample space (the set of outcomes) using characteristics (or categories) of the outcomes, or as unions, intersections, or complements of other events (“or,” “and,” “not”).
HSS-CP.A.2
Understand that two events and are independent if the probability of and occurring together is the product of their probabilities, and use this characterization to determine if they are independent.
HSS-CP.A.3
Understand the conditional probability of A given B as P(A and B)/P(B), and interpret independence of A and B as saying that the conditional probability of A given B is the same as the probability of A, and the conditional probability of B given A is the same as the probability of B.
HSS-CP.A.4
Construct and interpret two-way frequency tables of data when two categories are associated with each object being classified. Use the two-way table as a sample space to decide if events are independent and to approximate conditional probabilities.
HSS-CP.A.5
Recognize and explain the concepts of conditional probability and independence in everyday language and everyday situations. For example, compare the chance of having lung cancer if you are a smoker with the chance of being a smoker if you have lung cancer.