Statistician Lucy Snowball is working her way through lots of squiggly lines on a whiteboard, explaining to students how to analyse crime figures and how the data is used by government and community organisations.

Terms like “standard deviation”, “regression modelling” and “time series analysis” roll off her tongue as she puts the mathematics behind the study of statistics into a real-life application.

Ms Snowball, a senior research officer with the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR), was leading the education department’s first MasterClass of 2008, produced by the Centre for Learning Innovation (CLI) and involving senior students from the newly formed Lachlan Macquarie College. The data crunched by BOCSAR comes from police and court records. What are the characteristics of juvenile offenders? What social and economic factors affect involvement in crime? Are policing strategies effective? All of these questions are studied by the bureau.

During Ms Snowball’s Master- Class the students worked as statisticians, looking at data from different local government areas to study overall and seasonal trends in assault, malicious damage, motor vehicle theft and offensive conduct.

Karen White, CLI’s assistant director, learning design and services, said the MasterClass concept linked students anywhere in NSW with expert tuition. The video of the statistics class, for example, will be available on the CLI internet and the Teaching and Learning exchange (www.tale.edu.au), along with student and teacher support materials.

“It is real-life learning that puts mathematics skills into an authentic context,” Ms White said.

Students from Lachlan Macquarie College who took part in the MasterClass came from Cumberland, Northmead, Macquarie Boys, Macarthur Girls, Arthur Phillip and Marsden high schools. The college also includes Parramatta High School and James Ruse Agricultural High School.

The college will eventually be located on the site of Macquarie Boys Technology High School with links to the University of Western Sydney. College interim coordinator Mark Grady said it was already focusing on providing services to teachers and students, with the MasterClass its first official event.

Lachlan Macquarie College will provide professional development for staff, enrichment activities for students aiming for university and will also link mathematical and science skills to students seeking a career in the trades.

Mr Grady said the use of real data in the MasterClass helped students see the relevance of statistics. The BOCSAR data is available by local government area, so the Lachlan Macquarie College students could compare crime statistics from their area, Parramatta, with figures from the City of Sydney local government area.

“One of the common questions you get from students is ‘Why are we doing this, what’s the link?’ and one of the challenges for teachers is to find that link,” Mr Grady said.

Class acts

The 2008 MasterClasses follow the success of last year’s Writers Talk and Science Talk series. In the pipeline this year are filmed classes with Chinese/Australian artist Guan Wei; economics with Sydney Morning Herald journalist Ross Gittins; and the 1980 boycott of the Moscow Olympics by former swimmer Lisa Forrest whose book, Boycott, was published recently.