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Real-life statistics: Class analyzes best way to collect goods for refugees

Three of Operation Bake Swap’s four team members with customers: Kim Lee (standing, left), Evelina Pierce (second from right), and Sarah Aubin-Barrett (right). Not pictured: Jabari Bennett. Photo: The Paideia School

Jen Leong's introductory statistics students at The Paideia School in Atlanta got a real-life exercise in statistical consulting this spring. In the process, they collected more than 450 useable items for newly arriving refugees.

In their semester-long collaboration with Refugee Resettlement and Immigration Services of Atlanta, Georgia (RRISA), these 11th and 12th graders evaluated the effectiveness of three different methods for collecting clothing, kitchenware, and other items for local refugees.

Four-member teams implemented "Lighten the Load" clothing bins, "Project Yard Sale," and "Operation Bake Swap," documenting the time and money each method took along with the number and quality of items collected.

Background research on refugee crises in various parts of the world and home visits to refugees resettling in Atlanta also were important components of the students' project.

"I had two main goals," Leong said. "It was first and foremost a statistics class. I wanted my students to know and apply statistics concepts. And I wanted to give them some context to situate these concepts within, something they could be passionate about, and to feel that what they were doing was making a difference."

Leanne Rubenstein was Leong's primary contact at RRISA. "It was so nice to do a 'win-win' project with a school," she said.

"The project engaged so many people at one time - Jen's class, all the Paideia students who bought something at the bake swap, and the St. Martin in the Fields Episcopal Church and massage therapist's office that hosted the two clothing bins.

"In the refugee assistance world, you have to 'think outside the box' for ways to engage the community and ways to help refugees with more resources," Rubenstein said. "This really was thinking outside the box. And it will give back to RRISA and the community over and over. These students' eyes have been opened to something new."

Rubenstein added that about a week after the students had brought donated items to RRISA, a refugee caseworker was collecting things for a new family, and exclaimed, "Wow, we've got so much great stuff! Where did it come from?"

Jen Leong with her statistics class and RRISA staff. (Front row, left to right): Jabari Bennett, Evelina Pierce, Sarah Aubin-Barrett, Meg Keely, Alex Trachtenburg. (Back row, left to right): Melissa Mann, Sally Steele, Kim Lee, Safia Jama, Jen Leong, Elizabeth Cogburn, Jonelle Constantine, Michael Early, Maisie Richards, Aaron Kuniansky-Altman, Leanne Rubenstein. Not pictured: Will Bullock. Photo: The Paideia School

Service learning is part of many classes at The Paideia School, a private school with an emphasis on social awareness and volunteerism. Other high schools and colleges also incorporate service learning into coursework, Leong said, "but only a handful of teachers have used it in statistics, and no one has researched its impact."

Until now, that is. Leong said she is writing her doctoral dissertation on this spring's collaboration with RRISA, "evaluating the impact this kind of project has on students' attitudes toward statistics."

Leong wanted her students to understand what real-life statistical consulting involves. So before they got to analyze data or make a pie chart, they found themselves studying the World Refugee Survey, visiting a local refugee family, and going to see the movie "Hotel Rwanda."

Then they were asked to write a project plan, including an introduction, background, purposes, research questions, and evaluation plan - all before collecting any data. "They weren't used to writing in a math class," Leong said. "They kept asking, 'When are we going to do the statistics part?' When we finally got into data analysis, they were hungry for some number crunching!"

By the time the students finished their final reports, complete with charts and graphs, results, and conclusions, "they were convinced that they had done a good bit of statistics," Leong said. "What do real-life statisticians do? Exactly what they did!"

Students' visits to refugee families clearly had value beyond their primary purpose of helping set the context for statistical research.

Leong went with student Kim Lee to visit an Afghan family of eight, including a teenage girl. "The family had just arrived in the United States," Leong said, "and was feeling out of place and unsure about being here. It made a great impact on them that people in the community wanted to visit them."

Afterward, Lee remarked to Leong, "That was so cool! I can't wait to tell everybody about it!" Lee later took other students back for a second visit. "By then," Leong said, "the family was starting to settle in and feel less overwhelmed."

Other students met a refugee teen with a newborn baby. Commented one student about that experience, "She moved here about seven months ago, and had a baby three weeks ago. She turns 19 in May. I turn 19 in April. I know already how privileged I am, but on Friday, I was reminded again."

Want to try a collaboration like this in your area? Leong said adjustments may need to be made "if a similar project is undertaken in a public school, or in a private school with a different culture from that at The Paideia School.

Will Bullock sorts clothing donations at RRISA. Photo: RRISA

"High school students are very busy," she observed. "Many work after school or have other after-school activities, so we scheduled most of the service learning during school hours. But college students' schedules tend to be more flexible."

Rubenstein said that for such a project to work well for refugee resettlement agencies, they need the human resources to support it and a willingness and availability to communicate. They also should have a real need for some type of statistical consulting, "maybe some data to be analyzed, or a grant proposal that needs background demographic research, or a program to be assessed."

She concluded, "This project definitely was worth the staff time it took," a couple of days over a four-month period. "I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

So what's best? Yard sales, collection bins, or bake swaps?

All three strategies collected scores of useable items for newly arriving refugees. Here is a quick recap of each group's results:

Lighten the Load. Two clothing bins, one at a church and the other in a massage therapist's office, collected 80 useable items for men, women, and children over a two-week period. Costs totaled $5 for gas and two person hours to retrieve the clothing and deliver it to RRISA. The bins themselves were donated. A great project for a small group.

Operation Bake Swap. Team members spent $44 on baked goods, $8.50 on gas, and a total of nine person hours to bake, publicize the swap, and hold it. Customers were asked to "pay" with household items; e.g. a towel for a brownie. Cash also was accepted. The bake swap collected 274 useable items and netted $19 for Project Yard Sale. A project with spark, and a way to get a larger group involved.

Project Yard Sale. The team invested four hours and 10 minutes perusing yard sales, including driving and delivery time. With $81, including the $19 from the bake swap, team members bought 103 useable items, mostly for kitchen use. Gas cost $12. A great project for yard sale aficionados.

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