Lee Kucera (top) with teachers attending the teachers’ session

The Southern California Chapter held its fourth annual Project Competition for AP Statistics Students on May 30 at the City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, California. The competition attracted 47 teams from seven schools—a 47% increase in entries from last year.

Head judge Jim Bentley of the University of Redlands coordinated the pool of 26 judges, made up of college professors, graduate students, and statisticians from business and industry. The judges conducted poster session–style interviews of the teams, and each team received three interviews. The competition chair, Rodney Jee of Fair Isaac Corporation, announced 10 winners at the awards luncheon, which immediately followed the judging. Winning teams received a $40 cash prize and T-shirts donated by Minitab.

For the first time, the chapter split the competition from its pairing with the long-standing Career Day to allow the two events to develop separately and focus on their respective core participants. This permitted the competition to hold its first formal teachers’ session for those teachers who came with their students. While the students were being interviewed, the teachers benefited from talks given by two chapter members. Lee Kucera, an AP Statistics teacher at Capistrano Valley High and past judge for the ASA’s Project Competition, gave a demonstration of Texas Instruments’ Nspire calculator. Jessica Utts, who is at the University of California, Irvine, and has been formally involved with the AP Statistics exam from its beginning, showed how Minitab can be used for teaching.