Edutainment

One of my favorite things is Edutainment (Educational entertainment). Every year, I assign a project to my students where they must create something that is edutaining. Students have written and performed songs, written poems, short stories, made animated videos, et cetera.

Last year, I decided to write a song myself. I am not much of a singer, but here is the song I wrote and performed for my Statistics and Probability class.

Normal Curve

A math themed parody of Punk Rock Girl by The Dead Milkmen

Lyrics:

One afternoon I took a look at my homework

All these distributions gonna make me go berserk

(Normal Curves) Please look at them

(Normal Curves) And don’t condemn

Describing what we observe

Shaped like a bell Normal Curve

I started surveying people, asking “How tall are you?”

Most were average, but one girl’s five foot two

(Normal Curves) She wishes she was higher

(Normal Curves) But she’s an outlier

The data I must preserve. Shaped like a bell Normal Curve

Aroldis Chapman’s in the 99th percentile

In the MLB he throws the fastest projectile

(Normal Curve) one oh five miles per hour

(Normal Curve) That’s a lot of power

His fame is well deserved, Shaped like a bell, Normal Curve

Whistle

(Normal Curves) Please look at them

(Normal Curves) And don’t condemn

Describing what we observe, Shaped like a bell Normal Curve

The difference between me and mu is our distribution

Dividing this by sigma gives us our Z solution

(Normal Curves) You look so mild

(Normal Curves) Our data’s compiled

You’re never on my nerves

Our normal probability plot doesn’t swerve

You’re the distribution the world doesn’t deserve

You’re shaped like a bell, Normal Curve