Quantitative Methods Project: Promoting the use of quantitative methods in ethnobiology
Please Note: Not all of these questions have been framed in a proper ethnobotanical format. Informants should be making the observations, not the investigator. The questions are being updated to reflect this important difference.
Island Plants. People on this island archipelago live on either low, sparsely vegetated islands and high, heavily-vegetated islands. The distances, and often treacherous ocean conditions, generally limit the movement of people between islands. While there is every reason to believe that a different set of plants is used by people living in these contrasting environments, you need to challenge this assumption by examining the data.
Food Records. Your mother reminds you that students at your rural elementary-school had a diary assignment that involved writing down all the different food that they ate during a week. This was done twice a year, once in the fall and again in the spring. When you inquire, you find that some of the teachers who have been at this school for a long time have kept some of these diaries. Does this information tell you anything about whether food habits have changed over the period covered by the data?
Garden Knowledge. Several housing developments were built about a decade ago. By now, the landscaping in each is well established. Several of the developments were landscaped by a professional company and new home owners had no voice in what was planted in the yard. In fact, all the landscaping maintenance is done by a company that has contracted with an owners association to provide a uniformity of appearance. The other communities have depended on individual home owners to design and maintain the landscaping in their yards. The Association of Home Owners has invited you to a meeting of the Landscaping Committee. During the meeting, the Chair of the committee asserts that having a professional landscaping company has "dumbed down" the residents since they don't need to know anything about plants. Your question is whether the home owners in the two situations differ in their knowledge of the plants that occupy their yards, and those of their neighbors.
Inedible Foods. You are on a trip to the produce section of the local supermarket with a friend. This friend makes the observation that there is an abundance of vegetables and greens that she never eats. She goes on by asking why the produce grocer even stocks these “useless” items. Sparked by this observation, your curiosity compels you to make a list of all the produce items in the supermarket. You take this list to your sociology class in the form of a questionnaire. You have several classification questions which you hope will help explain the patterns of who buys the different types of produce.
Organic Tomatoes. An argument develops in a class about whether organically-grown tomatoes taste better than those grown conventionally using fertilizers and pesticides. Early in the discussion, you ask “What does ‘taste better’ mean?” People have different answers, none of which are very satisfying except the statement “I simply know what is good when I taste it.” You decide to see if we agree on taste, at least for tomatoes. You buy similar appearing organic and non-organic tomatoes and cut them into enough slices that everyone can mark whether each tomato either tastes good, or not. What can you say about the results?
City Trees. An editorial in the local newspaper asserts that trees provide many environmental services. The editor further stated that the use of this living resource is not spread evenly over the city but it is highly biased toward some parts of the city. You and your classmates decide to sample the city by estimating the tree cover for one-block areas, randomly chosen across different sections of the city. Your cover measurement is derived from the estimated canopy diameter of all of the large shade trees in each city block sampled. In addition, each of the sample city blocks is assigned to either an “average” or “upscale” rating based on the character of the neighborhood.
Landscaping Choices. On a drive around town, one of your relatives remarks that people in the part of town you're passing through don't know anything about landscaping. "How can they live here," your relative asks. Based on this comment, you notice that different parts of the town tend to have front-yard landscaping that is both fairly consistent within an area and different between areas. Since you are pretty good at identifying all the types of plants that are used for landscaping, you start compiling plant lists from randomly chosen houses within several of these areas. What can you conclude from the data?
Changing Taste. "I'll sure be happy when my son gets older," remarks a friend. "He doesn't like to eat any kind of vegetable now, but I know that he will eventually outgrow this." This reminds you that as you got older, you found that you and your friends seemed to eat some of the once detested foods. You get permission to administer a questionnaire to several classrooms of young and older students. The questionnaire has a list of vegetables and each student is instructed to mark whether they like or dislike each vegetable. What do your data tell you?
Produce Bags. You have a new job in a supermarket produce department. The manager has come to you with a problem. “They want me to start putting produce in bags. You know, something like 4 tomatoes sealed in a plastic bag with a price on the front.” He went on to explain that he didn’t know the quantity to put in each bag. He reasons that if the bags that are too small it will cut his sales; if they are too large, people won't buy them. You agree to help and for the next several days, you station yourself by the produce scale. You make a record of people who weigh their produce by noting the product and weight. What can you conclude from the data?
Pepper Sizes. A dispute has arisen. Your best friend has developed a strong preference (read "passion") for organic green peppers from the local health food store. Your friend's partner, however, complains that the health food store peppers are too variable; some are big and others are small. You wonder if the differences in size are just an illusion caused by the different shapes. You wonder if the variation in the weight of the organic green peppers is not significantly different than the weight variation in green peppers that are available in a supermarket. What can you discover by looking at the data from random sets of peppers from each type of market?
New Pear. An importer has approached you about selling a new variety of pear. “It is the best pear there is,” maintains the vendor. “Your customers will love it.” Somewhat skeptical, you take a small supply and perform an experiment. You have an assistant, who randomly choose customers who come into your produce department, approach each person and offer pieces of both your traditional pear variety and the new variety. The assistant then asks which one the person prefers. It your goal to come up with a quick answer to whether people prefer one or the other, or whether there is no significant difference between the two varieties in terms of preference.
Food Names. One of your friends has complained that "those people" (referring to an ethnic group that is different than his) don't know the right names for things. He provides some examples of different names for some of the vegetable and fruits; what he calls an “avocado,” they say is an “alligator pear.” He refers to “Chinese parsley" and they say “cilantro.” You wonder if this is really a cultural difference, or just the fact that there are different names available. You make up a list of the species for which you have noticed that there are disagreements. For each species, you list the two different names, identifying the first of these with a "1" and the other with a "2". You distribute your list to your friends and ask each person to choose the number corresponding to the name they use to describe the species. You also ask them to choose their ethnic background. Can you predict the name your friends use based on their ethnicity?
Passion Plants. The topic of "passion" comes up in a discussion with a friend. Your friend wants to send a message to her boyfriend by giving him something that he will associate with "passion." You come up with a list of plant products for which you think there is some possibility of association with passion. Things like chocolate, strawberries, artichoke hearts, olives, and wine. Since you are not sure if you have covered the possibilities, you ask some of your friends to contribute to this list and you get some “unusual” additions. You are curious if this is maybe a “boy-girl” difference. You test this by randomly choosing equal numbers of boys and girls who are about the same age. You give each one the list of items that have been associated with passion and ask them to mark “agree” or “disagree.” Is there consensus within each gender and, if so, does gender relate to different perceptions?
Fireplace Wood. You are a new resident in a rural community. Your house has a fireplace and you decide that burning tree trimmings is an environmentally responsible way to provide heat in the winter. When you mention this to a long-time resident, you are given the advice "ya better make sure ya have enough wood for the winter." You soon notice that on cold nights, you burn quite a bit more wood than on other nights. With many much colder nights ahead, you wonder if you can predict how much wood to have available if you know the likely nighttime temperature. See if you have any basis for making such a prediction based on the records you have made.
Earthworm Compost. I had been composting some tree leaves for several months and was encouraged by finding that there were now a lot of earthworms in the compost pile. “Composting tree leaves works better if you heavily water the compost pile after you turn it over,” claimed a visiting consultant. “Not a good idea,” was the response of the local expert who was helping me. “Don’t add any extra water.” Since I had no idea which person was right, I asked them to agree on a measure of successful composting. They finally suggested that I should count the number of earthworms in the compost after two more months of treatment. The treatment with the greatest number of earthworms would be the better treatment. Based on their advice, I divided fresh compost (without any earthworms) into two large piles. I then went to my active compost pile and extracted 200 earthworms, haphazardly dividing these into two piles of 100 each. I mixed the earthworms with the two piles of compost for my experiment. After carrying out the experiment for two months, I counted all the earthworms in each pile. What can be concluded based on the data?
Street-Tree Choices. "Up north here, we learned the value of street trees a long time ago," stated one of the elderly residents in a town meeting. She went on by saying, "those people down south have never learned." The Web has made government reports much more accessible. You happen to find that cities from across the state are now providing annual reports for all the major government departments. With a bit of searching, you are able to find out how many street trees were planted recently in a number of cities. Since the state stretches across a wide environmental gradient from north to south, you wonder if there is any relationship between the local environments and the choice of trees used on highways.
Community Gardens. The city Human Resources Department has proposed that empty lots throughout the city should be used for community gardens. You go to one of the information meetings to get details about the plan and to see what people think they would grow in a modest-size plot. Several of the potential gardeners have told you that the city official "don't know anything about what should be grown in gardens." Your real interest is to determine if the city officials planning the gardens have the same view about their use as the people who are potentially going to use the garden spaces. You have already assembled a list of potential edible plants from a survey of the local nursery, listing all the species that are available either as seeds or small potted plants. You provide your list to people from each group (city officials vs potential gardeners) and ask them to order the items from the best choice to the worst choice. What can you say about the expectations for the gardens?
Big Corn. A local farmer has developed a new variety of corn. The ears in this variety are obviously larger than the customary variety. In all other respects, the corn appears and tastes the same. The produce manager at the market tells you that she isn’t sure that her customers will accept this unfamiliar size. To test this, the two varieties of corn are packaged separately, with three ears in each plastic bag. The price for each bag is the same, even though it is very apparent that you get more corn in the bags containing the new variety. While the manager can tell the overall success of the new corn variety simply by the total sales, she has said that she is interested in knowing the preferences elderly versus young women customers. You are assigned to monitor the buying preferences of these two groups. You do this by noting the general age (young vs. old) and which variety they select (standard vs. new). Do your data indicate that there a significant preference in either age group?
Flower Buckets. The local flower shop in this well-established part of town provides contract-workers with buckets of flowers to sell during the holiday season. This is a well established practice and contractors who have claimed rights to key street intersections know that they will quickly sell their entire consignment (1 bucket full). New recruits get less favorable locations and it may take many hours to sell the same amount. The lack of sales can discourage a contractor and he is likely to stop participating in this program. The shop owner has kept track of how many buckets of flowers were sold each season for quite a few years. He has come to you for help in understanding what, if anything, can be made of the data. What can you say about the trend?
Tree Preference. A new housing development is being planned and the city will be planting new trees along the streets. "I'd like to use the tree species that best matches the preferences of the people who are interested in this new housing area," the head of the tree planting department tells you. You go to the sales model and interview potential home buyers by showing them photographs of the two alternative species and ask which one they would prefer. You job is to report to the city as soon as you know which species is preferred. You would like to have confidence in your results but recognize that you need to get an answer as soon as possible.
Hospital Flowers. You are a new volunteer at the large local hospital. During a discussion with a very experienced volunteer, she observes that she can tell which section of the hospital she is in simply by looking at the flowers in the patients' rooms. She goes on to explain that flowers are delivered or brought to the hospital in response to two different situations: some flowers are for happy situations (such as the birth of a child) while other flowers are involved in situations that are sad (such as a major illness or injury). You wonder if it is the kind of flowers that are used more for one situation than the other, or it is simply the abundance of flowers in the two situations. You decide to test the "abundance hypothesis" by counting the number of discrete flower arrangements (e.g., pots of living plants, bouquets, and single flowers in a vase) in the two sections (e.g., happy vs. sad) of the hospital.
Showing Wood. "Rich people like a lot of wood," confides a real estate agent. She goes on to explain that the use of wood inside a house or apartment is more important to people who are wealthy than those who are poor. You test this idea by creating subjective categories based on how much unpainted wood is on display (e.g., wooden book cases, wood floors, and wood kitchen cabinets). This scale is applied by visiting many apartments during real estate open houses. On each visit, you rate the apartment and then find out its sale price. As part of your analysis, you categorize the sales prices into groups that express the range of affluence in the area you sampled. Did you guess correctly?
Tree Growth. In a visit to a large town, you are told that all the houses in a particular area were constructed together in a relatively short time. To save money, the housing developer used a single landscaping design. This consisted of planting the same two tree species in the front yards of all the houses. The amount of growth has depended, in part, on the care given by the individual owners. Obviously, there has been a lot of variability. This is all relevant because of a recent discussion during a local city council meeting. The council members want to get tree cover as fast as possible in a new neighborhood so that new residents will benefit from the ecological services. The council wants you to report on the growth of these trees and the expected performance of these species in similar environments in the new neighborhood.
House Sizes. "It seems like the people who are rebuilding their houses are making them larger than we usually make them," observes one of the elders in the village. He is referring to the people who are reconstructing houses after many were destroyed by a violent storm. The houses in the village are all constructed on a similar rectangular floor plan. This simple plan consists of a single room in which all indoor activities take place. You can investigate this assertion fairly without bothering the residents by estimating the length and width of a sample of houses from outside the house. You can then use these data to determine the average living area of families in this town. Are the new houses larger?
Market Stalls. A huge fire has recently destroyed the town market. This market was inside a large building. The floor area had been divided into many rectangular areas that are rented to people who sell produce. The local leaders want to rebuild the market in a new, fireproof structure. The vendors are telling the leaders how large their stall had been. One of the leaders is afraid that the vendors are asking for larger areas than they previously used. You are given access to the burned out market building. It is not safe to go everywhere so you sample some of the stall dimensions. What can you tell the local leader about the size of these individual stalls?
Shopping Habits. Many people in the town go shopping at the produce market early in the morning. The market is open every day. There has been some intense discussion in the vendor's association meeting about limiting the number of days that the market is open. The association has asked for your advice. You make ten minute counts of the people who enter the market every morning starting at 6:30 AM. You do this every day for a month. How can you best portray the shopping habits, based on your data?
Price Strategies. Many vendors in the large produce market sell the same large variety of squash in the market. Some of these vendors price the squash based on the weight. Others vendors price the squash as the cost for an individual squash. "Only fools or rich people buy squash that are individually priced," claims a local resident. "They only tell you that they can't afford to buy a scale." Another person who overhears this says, "Rubbish. I save money when the squash are individually priced." The only way that you can determine who is right is to determine the average price per kilo. You purchase some of the squash from each type of vendor, keeping track of the cost of each squash. Later you weigh them. What can you say about the results?
Fruit Bunches. The fruit you are studying comes to the market in large boxes. The fruit are still on stems and them makes it convenient to sell the fruit in bunches in which the stems are tightly secured with a string. These bunches vary in size since vendors have the option to keep the bunches large or divide them into several smaller bunches. You need to determine the number of individual fruit that are sold in a bunch in order to properly describe the sales practice for this fruit.
Family Size. You would like to know the size of families in the community in order to compare your study to those in the literature. You have observed that many of the families in the town walk to church together on Sunday. You collect data by counting the size of each family as they walk by you. How can you describe your data?
Kid Demography. You need an estimate of the distribution of the local population into age classes. As part of your observations, you note that students line up outside the school every morning before school starts, . The children arrange themselves outside the classroom by standing in a line near their classroom door. You are pretty sure that each classroom has students who are about the same age. You count the number of students in each line on several successive days.
Bridge Crossing. A permanent stream runs through the town. For no particular reason you've gotten into the habit of dropping a small twig into the stream as you cross the bridge. You find that it is refreshing to pause on the bridge and so you start measuring the time that it takes the twig to reach the next bridge downstream. What can you say about the stream for the period you have made your measurements?
Grain Pots. Each household stores its grain in pots. A typical household has a number of these pots. The pots are all nearly spherical and they vary considerably in size. After some practice, you are able to estimate the approximate diameter of each storage pot. You make a list of the sizes of each storage pot that you see in each house that you visit. Estimate the typical volume of grain at is stored by a family. [how data are stored is important in this, too]
Tree Sizes. You are studying a tree that is very important to the people in a village. This is an abundant species that grows tall in the household gardens. You have enlisted the help of some students to help you collect data. You give them the instruction, "Measure the height of all the individuals of this species that grown in the village. Make a note if there are any fruit or not on each tree." The students spread out into the village and soon return with lots of data. Make sense of it.
Student Food. You prepare a list of forty common vegetables and fruits. Each student in the class is given the assignment to record how often they eat each item on the list over a one-week period. Can you say that there is a typical profile for your students?
Juicy Organic. A market has two bins with the same fruit. One bin is labeled “organic – no pesticides or fertilizers” and the price of these fruit is quite a bit higher than the price for fruit in the other bin. The produce manager tells you that organic fruit are better because each one has more juice, and that's where you get the nutrients. Curiosity aroused, you purchase some fruit from each bin, take these to the lab. Each fruit is weighed and then the juice is extracted into a measuring container. What can you say about these data?
Shade Trees. "The people who used to live here really liked trees," observed a friend who had recently purchased a "fixer-upper" house. The houses in his neighborhood, in the older part of town, have large front yards. It is apparent from the condition of the houses that people who in this area are likely to be relatively poor, compared to those who live in another, not too distant part of town. The condition of the houses and yards in this other section are quite different. Your friend continued by observing, "those people don't seem to like trees as much." You wonder if this is true. You count the number of large shade trees in a random sample of yards in each section of this part of the town. You also estimate the area of the yard in which trees might be grown. What can you say about your data?
Local Brew. Many people in the village brew the favorite local beverage by fermenting a common fruit. You are frequently offered this drink and notice that there are differences in taste from one household to another. You are able to obtain samples from quite a few randomly selected households. You analyze these samples for alcohol content. Do you see any patterns in your data?
Fitting In. You plan on staying in a community for several years and your sponsor has provided you with a new home which he built on the outskirts of the community. You visit with the neighbors and seek their advice on what to plant in the yard of your new home. You tell them that your objective is to “fit in” with the other homes. You have a questionnaire on which you have listed 40 plant species that you have seen planted in yards in the region. Each species is illustrated with a photo showing its typical appearance. You ask each neighbor to mark those plants that are appropriate for you to use in landscaping your property. You also collect some basic demographic data about each respondent. What should you plant in order to meet your objective?
Rainfall History. The Agriculture Bureau has an experimental farm near your study site. They have collected weekly rainfall records, very faithfully, for many years. You are interested in seeing how typical the rainfall has been during the past year in which you have done your study. You know that the annual rainfall “season” begins after a period of long drought.
Essential Spices. You explain to a group of women at a community gathering that since you are new to the community and that you do not have any spices in your kitchen. You are seeking their advice on the spices that every well-equipped kitchen should have. You distribute a list of potential spices and ask them to choose which on this list they consider to be important.
Wooden Ancestors. Ancestors are commemorated by wooden statues. People in the village can tell you the age of each statue. Compare the ages of statues from two villages.
Vegetable Lovers. People from villages along the coast seem to use more different vegetables in their diet than inhabitants of nearby inland villages. You observe people who buy vegetables in several coastal villages and count how many different types of vegetables that they buy before leaving the market. You do the same thing in several inland villages.
House Lots. Houses in older sections of town appear to have less land surrounding the house than houses in a newer section. This implies that there will be differences in the amount of vegetation that can be planted around the house, whether this is for landscaping or food. You have found good satellite images of both areas and have measured the size of lots in each area.
Tree Density. The town is laid out with sidewalks in front of each yard. The city ordinance specifies the width of the area between the street and the sidewalk. This is the area in which the city plants street trees. You travel down a standard number of blocks in the city and note the number of tree species planted in this area. What is the relative density of each of the species?
Growing Fruit. You obtain permission to visit the yards of 40 houses in the city. You have specifically chosen 20 from a relatively affluent section of town and 20 from a relatively poor area. You note the number of trees that will produce edible fruits and those that will not have edible fruit.
Shelf Life. Some items in the produce section last a long time, while others have a relatively short shelf life. You are able to determine the approximate shelf life of the different produce in a variety of ways. You are curious if there is any relationship between the price of the produce and its shelf life, anticipating that the less expensive items will last longer in the produce bins.
Lawn Care. In some suburban areas, lawns are an important feature of the yard. A large, well-kept lawn is a source of pride -- and a major expense -- for the homeowner. A rating scale has been devised to quickly assess the size and quality of a lawn. Several neighborhoods are surveyed to see if there are significant differences in their lawns based on the rating scale.
Outdoor Planters. People who live in urban row houses express their individuality by maintaining potted plants on their door steps. Almost every house in the area has at least one pot full of flowering plants. In one part of town, people appear to use just a single plant species in a pot, while in another area there seem to be more diversity, with several species in each pot. Is there actually a difference?
Apple Quality. Twenty five apples are harvested. Some were chosen that appear to be high quality, while other apples are clearly inferior. Ten apple pickers are asked (separately) to rate each apple as either satisfactory for sale or a reject. Do these apple pickers have the same standard?
Quality Decay. Several kinds of fruit are brought into a storage area. Each kind has 100 randomly selected fruits. Every day the fruit are examined and those that are no longer "fresh" are tabulated and discarded. This continues until all the fruit have been discarded. How many days are required for each kind of fruit to be half gone (LD50)?
Watermelon Contest. You discover, by happy coincidence, that you are in the city that claims to be "The Watermelon Capital of the World" and that this is the annual celebration weekend. One of the activities is a weigh-in of the largest watermelons. You watch the process and record all the weights.
Cabbage Price. The market price of a local favorite cabbage variety changes through the growing season. You do a market survey every morning and record the sale price at the largest seller's stand.
Hotel Flowers. A huge floral display is the centerpiece of the lobby of the city's largest hotel. Every two weeks they install another display of fresh flowers. You keep track of the species on display and their relative abundances over an entire year.
Spicy Foods. This region is known for its use of spices in its cuisine. The local cookbooks list the type and amount of each spice that goes into each recipe. Using these values, you compare several cookbooks for the diversity of spices.
Flowering Phenology. You are given a long list that records the date at which the first flowers are observed for several tree species. The list covers many years. Since all the observations were made at the same place and by the same observer, you have some confidence that these annual reports can be compared.
Phenology Transect. A large family has dispersed over the years so that siblings are now located along a fairly substantial North-South transect. As children, they developed a hobby of recording the first flowers to bloom each spring. As adults, they phone each other when they have a 'first bloom' sighting every year. These dates are faithfully recorded on a calendar and this record is maintained by one of the siblings.
Potato Prices. Potatoes are a staple in the region and the price is a good measure of the general cost of living. Old newspapers kept in the library provide information on the cost of this commodity over a span of many years. What is the annual inflation?
Seedy Melons. "Fewer seeds" claims the person marketing a particular melon variety. These melons are also somewhat smaller than the traditional variety. After weights are adjusted, is there a difference in the number of seeds?
Paper Bags. Paper recycling is done by all the building occupants. All the paper is bundled in large bags and these bags are collected weekly. Students who run the recycling program have an informal competition so the number of recycle bags is recorded. Since the buildings are different sizes, a recycling index is the result of adjusting for the number of building occupants.
Clothing Style. Casual clothing in this region generally has a floral motif or bright geometric patterns. Both men and women can be seen wearing such colorful garments. It is claimed that women dress using floral design more often than men. Is this true?
Gigantic Tomatoes. A local organic advocacy group claims that composting produces larger tomatoes than when you fertilize with commercial products.
Old Coconuts. The age of coconut palms can be estimated by the tree height. Use this relationship to determine the age-frequency of the population.
Table Flowers. The restaurants in the town have three types of table decorations: no flowers, artificial flowers and real flowers. Each restaurant was visited and the types of flowers were noted. A menu was examined at each restaurant and was evaluated by averaging the price of all the entrees.
Neat Lawns. Fifty houses were selected at random in each of two distinctively different neighborhoods. All the houses were surveyed each day and lawns that were mowed in the past 24 hours were noted. If the frequency of mowing is an indicator of the importance of the lawn, do the two neighborhoods differ?
Crop Decisions. A great river divides the flat plain. The only river crossing is many miles away. Villages on opposite sides of the river are effectively isolated from each other. People were surveyed regarding the relative importance of items on a list of crops that might be grown in the region.
Tree Profits. Woodlots provide small areas in which two species of trees can be grown. One species grows quickly but has low value. The other species has high value, but grows slowly. Which species should be planted?
Rice Support. Rice is a staple in this area and is consumed daily. A survey of the families has determined the average daily consumption for each family. A different survey has estimated the annual crop that a typical farmer can produce in each hectare. If you know the area in the region that is suitable for growing rice, can you estimate the maximum sustainable population?
Changing Fortunes. Local inhabitants generally talk about the farming success for a year with four categories: great, average, poor and bust. It is possible to correlate these categories with the government production statistics. Given the long-term record, what are the transition probabilities between the categories?
Farmer Survey. A random selection of farmers is contacted early in the growing season and asked if it is going to be a good year or not. What is the consensus and the margin of error?
Color Influence. Some oranges were randomly selected, placed into cups and then cut into two equal pieces with the pieces returned to the original cup. The skin on one piece of orange in each cup was dyed so that the color is slightly different (but still obvious) than the the piece that were not dyed. Each person in the study was asked to taste the two orange slices (dyed and undyed) and identify which one they prefer.
Fastest Shoppers. The time required for produce shoppers to select all their purchase and the number of different types of produce purchased was tabulated, along with the gender of the shopper.
Estimating Areas. Several fields of different sizes were carefully measured. Two groups, one from a rural region and the other from an urban region, were asked to estimate the area of each field.
Forest Crop. A new crop has been identified that can be extracted from the local forest and sold to exporters. The government would like to make sure that this important resource is not over-exploited. As a result, each harvester is required to record the time spent collecting the crop and the amount of money received for the crop's sale to the exporter. Records for several years are available.
Treatment Application. A local plant with no previously identified medicinal uses is prepared as an externally applied ointment. People suffering from a common ailment are given this new treatment . Experimental subjects are randomly allocated one of two types of people to apply the treatment. One group applying the treatment are seen as high-status people in the region. The other group of people applying the treatment are those who have virtually no status. Patients are asked whether this treatment has helped them or not.
Diversity rivalry. A rivalry has arisen between the apple farmers "down in the valley" and those who grow apples up in the mountains. The disagreement stems from the general perception that the mountain farmers treasure variety while the valley farmers have been taken over by the big cider producers with the result that the valley farmers grow just a few varieties. You visit as many farms in the two areas as you can and determine the number of apple varieties grown on each farm.
Size Choices. There is a species of fruit that is considered much better if it is ripen while it is still small (there are a lot of reasons for this preference). Larger fruits are not as valuable and are sold for less money. Vendors divide their stock of this fruit into three bins, each of which sells for a different price. You are interested in whether new vendors or those who have sold these fruit for a long time are more consistent in the allocation of the fruit into the bins. You choose the weight of the fruit as a proxy for the size.
Grain Decline. You are aware that there is some variability in each year's grain crop due to factors such as rainfall and the length of the growing season. However, most of the farmers tell you something like “each year we harvest less and less.” You are able to get the annual crop statistics for the last several decades. Are the farmers correct about the trend?
Best Cider. Two markets offer their own brand of cider. Each claims to have the "best in the valley." A blind test was established in a setting that draws people from all over the valley. Each person was given a sample of each cider and asked to judge which one is the "best." Report the outcome and how confident you are in the result.
Growth Contest. A large number of tree seedlings have been obtained by the Street Department to be planted along the streets in a new subdivision. There is considerable interest in getting these trees to grow as rapidly as possible to provide much needed shade in this new neighborhood. One tree crew challenges the other crew to see which one can get the largest trees in a year. The crews not only plant the trees but are responsible for the care of the trees for the first year. The streets in the subdivision are randomly assigned to the two crews. The diameter of each tree is measured by an impartial supervisor when each tree is planted. Each tree is re-measured a year later to see which crew has the best result.
Approved Plants. A new housing development has been established in which yard maintenance is included in the price. Buyers are asked what plants they would prefer in their yard by selecting from a list of “approved” plants. Photos of each plant species are provided so that everyone can identify the plants. The housing developer wants to have some consistency in the appearance of the yards. Do the choices fit with this desire?
Cafeteria Food. The food workers at the cafeteria complain that “kids don’t like vegetables.” You get two groups of students who are divided by a shared ethnic background. Each person in the group is given a list of vegetables and asked to mark whether or not they would eat the vegetable.
Spice Taste. Two groups, one of men and the other of women, all of whom are self-identified as "good cooks," participate in a study. Each person is given a list with pairs of items: a specific dish and an herb or spice. Each person is and asked to indicate whether this combination is appropriate or not. A zero means that the herb or spice should never used in the dish and a one means that it really should be used. Is there agreement?