Karry Roberts, ASA Detroit Chapter Secretary
Members of the ASA Detroit and Ann Arbor chapters recently presented awards for the ASA National Data Visualization Poster Competition and Michigan Statistics Poster Competition to students at their schools.
For several years, Robert Kushler, a Detroit Chapter board member, has coordinated award presentations for students in southeast Michigan with sponsors of the Michigan event currently led by Dan Adrian at Grand Valley State University (GVSU). Offered as an incentive to sponsoring teachers, members of the Detroit Chapter travel to the schools for a ceremony, rather than just mailing the plaques and certificates. They also present the teachers with a statistical book in recognition of their contributions.
This year, the chapter held two award presentations. A team of ninth-grade students from Macomb Academy of Arts and Sciences in Armada, Michigan, received an honorable mention at the national level. Violet Fiddes, a mathematics and computer science teacher there, encouraged her students to enter the competition.
The poster by Samantha Dulz, Jaclyn Golaszewski, and Mickala Winne, titled “What’s Up with Binge Watching?” won an honorable mention award in the Grades 7–9 category of the National Data Visualization Poster Competition. They also won a second-place award at the state-level Michigan Statistical Poster Competition.
Also, in Fiddes’ class, “Printed vs. Ebooks” by Kayla Whitney and Jessica Jarema received a third-place award and “Do You Know Crime” by Cameron Keller, Jacob Brown, and Brennan McClelland was a national qualifier at the Michigan Statistics Poster Competition.
Representing the ASA Detroit Chapter Board for this event were Rob Kushler, Kathy Peterson, Bob Peterson, and Karry Roberts.
During another recognition event at Uriah Lawton Elementary School in Ann Arbor, Anamaria Kazanis, council of chapters representative to the ASA Board; Nicholas Moloci, vice president of the Ann Arbor Chapter; and Kushler and Roberts from the Detroit Chapter presented a first-place Michigan Statistics Poster Competition award to third-grade student Paavani Tewari for “Exploring Public Library Summer Game Data.”
I want to personally thank the ASA for taking the time to focus on the hard work of students around the country. As a teacher, my hope is that my students will experience positive feedback when they put in the time and effort to produce quality work. Your contest and acknowledgement is something my students will remember years into the future!