The Department of Statistics at Grand Valley State University (GVSU), the Regional Math and Science Center at GVSU, and the Michigan Council of Teachers of Mathematics are pleased to announce the 2025 Michigan Statistics Poster Competition for K-12. 

A statistics poster tells the story of a data set through numbers and graphs.  A series of four articles that explain the process used to create a statistics poster and photos of last year’s winning entries are available at the MSPC website at http://www.gvsu.edu/stat/poster.  A sample lesson plan introducing the competition, alignments of statistics posters and the standards, and videos of the winning posters are available as well.  There are also pictures and videos of past winning posters on the site for your inspiration.  All students in K through 12 residing in Michigan are eligible to submit statistics posters to the competition.

Entries will be judged in four different grade level categories: K-3, 4-6, 7-9, and 10-12. Students may work individually or in teams. For the K-3 category, there is no restriction on the size of the team; it may be as large as the entire class. For the other three categories, the team may have up to four students.

Statistics Poster Contest Flier

There is no entry fee. All posters must be registered through the competition website http://www.gvsu.edu/stat/poster any time before they are submitted.  There are two options for submitting the posters: either physical or electronic. “Physical” means mailing or dropping off the actual paper poster and “electronic” means uploading a file (either a high-quality picture of a paper poster or a digitally created poster) to the online registration system.  Guidelines for making a digital poster can also be found on the competition website.

The deadline is March 28, 2025, and prize winners will be notified by May 5, 2025.  First, second, and third place prizes in the amounts of $144, $96, and $72, respectively, will be awarded in each of the grade level categories, and winning entrants' schools will receive plaques signifying the honor. Honorable mention certificates will be awarded, as well.  All posters become the property of the Department of Statistics at GVSU.  Winning posters are also sent to the national competition hosted by the American Statistical Association, where they are eligible to win further prizes.

For more information, please contact event organizer Dan Adrian at [email protected].

2024 Michigan winners announced

There were 202 entries in the 2024 Michigan Statistics Poster Competition for K-12 students -- the most since 2020 (!) -- including both electronic (computer files) and actual paper posters.  Entries were judged in four grade level categories: K-3, 4-6, 7-9, and 10-12.  Students were permitted to work in groups of up to 4 members except for the K-3 category where an entire class can work together on a poster. 

The first place posters in each grade category are:

The top 5 posters and honorable mentions in each category are listed at the poster competition website https://www.gvsu.edu/stat/poster.  Photos and videos of the top 5 posters in each category are also displayed there.  The videos pan and zoom around the posters and are set to fun music.

The first, second, and third place posters receive cash prizes of $144, $96, and $72, respectively, divided equally if students worked together.  The top three entrants’ schools receive plaques signifying the honor as well.  The top 5 posters in each category qualify for the national competition, sponsored by the American Statistical Association, whose judging will be complete by the end of June.  All students who worked on a top-5 or honorable mention poster will receive certificates. 

In addition, two posters from Michigan won awards at the national competition! 

Our 7-9 fourth place poster in the Michigan competition (Paavani Tewari; Huron High School; "Inflations, Hyperinflations, and Perceptions") won second place in the grades 7-9 at the national competition!  This student received $200 and a certificate celebrating the honor.

In addition, our K-3 winner in the Michigan competition (Adalyn Michels; Explorer Elementary School; "What Do People In Our Class Think About Reading and Writing?") received an honorable mention in the grades K-3 national competition. 

The poster competition committee wishes to express its thanks to the many teachers around the state that participated in this year’s competition.  We look forward to seeing your students’ fantastic ideas put on posterboard again next year.

The competition is sponsored by the Regional Math and Science Center and the Department of Statistics at GVSU.