Stats in the Wild

This set of bespoke evidence-based resources are for exploring statistics using outdoor maths, and includes four lesson activities:

Creature Features

Supports students in thinking about classification diagrams (such as dichotomous keys in biology) to help support the idea of classifying arthropods, leading to them designing their own diagrams to classify photographs of creatures taken in the wild.

Wings and Things

Encourages students to take an exploratory data analysis approach by playing with a data set about bird sightings in two locations in Scotland and both asking and answering questions about the data in context, using the free online tool CODAP.

Flora Explorer

Focuses on a fun set of activities based around modelling and simulating data on types of plants - including the chance for students get to use a quadrat!

The lesson resources can be done in any order and are suitable for students aged 11-16.

Each set of resources contains a student activity sheet, a set of teacher notes, and some short videos exploring ways that maths teachers can bring out some of the important statistical ideas in the lesson. All resources can be found on the Royal Statistical Society website and will be available from early September 2025.

The 'Stats in the Wild' resources were produced by Dr Lucy Rycroft-Smith and Darren Macey as part of Maths Week Scotland 2025.

Competition

Finally, there is an exciting infographic competition for Maths Week Scotland 2025, called Graph Craft in which students can design and submit an infographic (either hand drawn or digital) that tells a story about an issue that is important to them or their community.

The competition is open 5th September - 10^th October 2025, and is open to anyone aged 11-16 who goes to school (or is homeschooled) in Scotland.