Fourteen Norwin High School students competed at the first annual “Data Derby” on November 13th at St. Vincent College.
They were students from Mr. Harskowitch’s Statistics classes. The team consisted of two juniors and twelve seniors.
Students were tasked with reviewing a real-world data set with 120,000 lines of data from the Four Mile Run watershed in Westmoreland County, analyzing it to help a targeted audience, statistically analyzing their findings, and presenting their insights to a panel of industry judges.
“We were given a large amount of data that a river has been collecting and had to sort through information to create graphs and make conclusions that could affect the people living nearby,” senior Riley Miller explained.
This was a new and enticing challenge for the Knights. They challenged their quick thinking and analysis skills and applied their knowledge from Mr. Harskowitch’s class.
“We used different statistical methods to create conclusions from our data. These skills included Standard deviation, regression lines, as well as creating our own graphs based off the data we received,” senior, Ava Passarelli, said.
The teams also participated in seminars at the Fred Rogers Center dealing with economics, business, and sciences, focusing on how data analytics is used in those fields and interacted with college students and local business leaders.
“My favorite part was getting to meet people from other schools and experience Saint Vincent College,” senior Saige Hockman stated.
Students were able to learn more about future careers in the math field.
“I got to see presentations from multitudes of teams that all concluded different things from the same data,” senior Sofie Gray said.
The Norwin teams participated against 15 other teams from Allegheny, Westmoreland, and Cambria counties for the competition.
Even though the teams did not place in the top three, they learned and utilized valuable skills in one of the fastest-growing fields of Data Science and Analytics.
“My favorite part about the event was being able to present the project we worked so hard on, since I could see all our efforts coming together and paying off,” junior Preston Montag explained.
The trip was a great learning experience for the students, statistically speaking.
