Service-Learning Activity in a Statistics Course

Learning through service, a combination of community-based activities with learning objectives, or experiential education, are some features of service-learning (SL) methodology, which improves the realities where the service is performed, and which considers who receives the service as a central element. A SL activity was proposed to undergraduate sophomore students from Industrial Engineering degrees. Students developed a teamwork as part of their statistics course collaborating with a local entity. To make this possible, teachers identified a community need in line with the course contents and after that students were invited to participate. A teamwork was proposed to all students and one group decided to collaborate with an association that helps families in need. The work consisted of creating a database with the data gathered by volunteers and after that present a basic descriptive analysis. The built database and the analysis performed were grounded on the association needs to better help the families that it serves. This SL activity was assessed as part of the course activities.