Last week, Anu Aiyer’s AP Statistics students were recognized by the New York Times for their contributions to a discussion on a graph posted in the Times’ “What’s Going On in This Graph?” series. Each week, the Times posts a graph and invites students to participate in live discussions on the information it contains. The April 16 graph depicted consumer spending during the COVID-19 pandemic, showing how spending habits changed during the last week of March as compared to the same week in 2019. Students were invited to discuss what they noticed about the graph, ask questions about the data presented and come up with a headline for the graph that encapsulates its main idea. Aiyer’s students’ headline, “COVID Troubles & Fiscal Bubbles: How COVID-19 Changed Our Spending Habits,” was one of four recognized.  

“We have been doing this in my classes throughout the year and this time we sent in our analysis and out of 400 entries, our names were selected,” Aiyer said.