This course teaches students to discuss statistics in their field, to take sets of data, and describe and present them using an appropriate statistic. At the end of the term, students should possess confidence in their ability to tackle basic applied statistics problems and with the fundamental knowledge needed to learn more of advanced statistical theory.

This course deals with nature of mathematics, appreciation of its practical, intellectual, and aesthetic dimensions, and application of mathematical tools in daily life. This course begins with an introduction to the nature of mathematics as an exploration of patterns in nature and the environment and as an application of inductive and deductive reasoning. By exploring these topics, students are encouraged to go beyond the typical understanding of mathematics as merely a set of formulas but as a source of aesthetics in patterns of nature, for example, and a rich language in itself (and of science) governed by logic and reasoning.