Homer was a pop statistician! – 17th International Kids’ Carnival

Istat participates in the 17th International Kids’ Carnival, a project by La Biennale di Venezia which, since 2010, has been dedicated to young people, schools with their teachers, and families, encouraging creativity and participation among younger generations while maintaining a constant, direct, practical and active dialogue with participants. The objective is educational, but it is achieved through creativity and play.

The initiative is part of the activities of the Division for coordinating the promotion of statistical literacy, which Istat implements to improve knowledge and understanding of quantitative information, with particular attention to younger generations.

The Institute collaborates with Ca’ Foscari University of Venice with the workshop Homer was a pop statistician! for primary and lower secondary schools. We play with literature and statistics. We all possess a certain statistical ability. Do we really use it to understand the world? To find out, let’s take a leap into the past and meet Homer as he depicts the epic Trojan War in the Iliad. In the Catalogue of Ships, he enumerates the contingents of the Achaean army, describes commanders, the number of ships and, in some cases, the men embarked, with a level of detail comparable to a statistical table. As experts in statistics, let’s analyze and interpret Homer’s data!