Not necessary at all. You can teach most of the interesting parts of statistics with just the binomial distribution and numerical techniques like bootstrapping.

Not necessary at all. You can teach most of the interesting parts of statistics with just the binomial distribution and numerical techniques like bootstrapping. Nothing about that is wishy-washy, it's just a modified curriculum that sidesteps some interesting things that require calculus but in return allows you to focus on some other really interesting things that don't require it. There is, for example, nothing rigorous about being able to prove and use the Central Limit Theorem – the whole point of the thing is that it's an approximation and not always a very good one at that. And this is the origin of many statistical techniques and tests: computational shortcuts. The fact that these shortcuts require a good understanding of math doesn't suddenly make them any more central to a conceptual understanding of statistics than they are. Two good examples of good stats intros that are light on the math: Allen Downey's Think Stats http://greenteapress.com/thinkstats2/ http://greenteapress.com/thinkstats2/ or the more traditional/frequentist http://onlinestatbook.com/ http://onlinestatbook.com/.