The Olympic Flame: Are You in the 95%?

Stage: 2, 3 and 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

flame iconThe Olympic flame will tour the UK, the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey between 19 May and 27 July 2012.  It should come within 10 miles of 95% of the population of these areas.

Is this true?  Will it pass 10 miles or less from where you live?

Use the Getting to the Point tool at Sport at School to find out.

We want you to help us find out how good that 95% estimate actually is.
When you've found out your distance from the route, vote in our polls.
You'll then see what the results are looking like - so far, it seems that less than 70% of us live within 10 miles of the route, which means that 30% of us don't.  But as our sample grows, this may change ...

Of course, it may be that you're more likely to vote in this poll if you think you're not in the 95%.  What effect do you think this will have on the reliability of the result?  Do you think that the way I asked the question might affect who is likely to respond?

 

 

Collect the data for your class.  

  • How many of you live within 10 miles (either by road or as the crow flies) of the route?
  • What measures might you use to test your class data? 
  • Originally the route was intended to be within an hour's travel of at least 95% of the population.  Use Google maps to get an estimate of travel times for people in your class.  Are you in this 95%?

Click here for a poster of this problem.

Published January 2012.