Elizabeth Greene

Term project
Math 1040
Spring 2016

Summary: In this project, as a class, we gathered a sample and used our

class as the population using skittles. It taught us skills such as collecting a sample,
which sample to use, and how to find confidence intervals, means, etc., using real
life things that we see and can use everyday.

Part 1:
Red

Yellow

Green

Purple

13

15

Total

Orange
Mine: 8

51
299

Class:

i.

ii.

iii.

617

627

566

567

620

Im not quite sure what I fully expected to see, so yes. In a way, its what I expected
to see. I guess looking at the numbers, theyre relatively close to each other in
counts per color per bag, so I think its safe to say that the skittles are pretty evenly
distributed when they get packaged.
I hate to say it, but I consider mine an outlier. I had to go repurchase a bag because
I forgot to write down my counts of skittles for my own bag, so the numbers that I
gave are a little different than what I wrote down on the chart for this assignment.
Theyre pretty close to the same. My red and orange is a little different, but thats it.
It looks like more people had the most orange, and my bag had the least orange out
of all the colors.
But thats the only real difference I see.

1. Determine the proportion of each color within the overall sample gathered by the class.
FIRST: Guess! What do you expect the proportions to be? Why?
We expect the proportions of the five colors within a 2.17 ounce Skittles package to be close to a
relative frequency of .2 each. We think that our individual bags might not be close to that, but we
expect that the larger the sample size is the closer those proportions would be to .2 for each of
the five colors. So once we add everyones bags together, the colors will be close to even.

SECOND: Now open the data set and compute the proportions of Red, Orange, Yellow, Green,
and Purple candies in the class data set. Note that the sample size is the total number of candies
collected by the class.
Count Red Count Orange Count Yellow Count Green Count Purple Total
Class Counts
617
627
566
567
620
2997
Proportion

.206

.209

.189

.189

.207

2. In StatCrunch, create a pie chart and a Pareto chart for the total number of candies of each color
in our class data set. Submit copies of your graphs in this report.

3. Does the class data represent a random sample? What would the population be? Collaborate to
discuss sampling and our data in a paragraph or two. Be careful to review the definition of a
random sample and be precise.
The class data does not represent a random sample, as the sampling methods were not random.
From dictionary.com, random sampling is a method of selecting a sample from a statistical
population in such a way that every possible sample that could be selected has a predetermined
probability of being selected. For our skittles sample to be random, each skittles bag in the
world would have had an equal chance of being selected. Our sample was a convenience
sample, as the bags of skittles were purchased at various locations that were convenient to the
students.
The population for this study is the 49 students in our class. While the majority of our class
members reside in Utah, there are many that live outside of the state as well, and out in the
world. This means that there are a wide variety of locations where the skittles were purchased.
Our project group is a sample of the class population.

Part 2: 1. Using the total number of candies in each bag in our class sample, compute the following
measures for the variable Total candies in each bag:
i.

mean number of candies per bag : 61.2 ii.

standard deviation of the number of candies per bag: 8.9 iii.

5-number summary for the number of candies per bag:

52,58,60,62,110 2. Create a frequency histogram for the variable
Total candies in each bag.

3. Create a box plot for the variable Total candies in each bag.

Part 3:
A confidence interval is a point that measures the probability that a
population parameter will fall between the two values. The purpose of it is to be
able to find the chance that the probability that a situation will fall between a
certain number. Confidence intervals are given in percentages, like 95% and 99%,

and they state how much confidence one has that we are 95% sure that something
will happen.

1.
Construct a 99% confidence interval estimate for the population proportion of yellow
candies. Show your work, including the computations for the margin of error and the critical
value.
Sample Proportion:
Critical Value: 99% =
2

Margin of Error: 2.
Lower Limit: .189 - .0184 = .1704
Upper Limit: .189 + .0184 = .2073

2.
Construct a 95% confidence interval estimate for the population mean number of candies
per bag. Show your work, including the computations for the margin of error and the critical
value.
Mean number of candies per bag: 61.2
Standard deviation of the number of candies per bag: 8.868
(1 ) 100% = 95% = (1 .05) 100% = 95% so = .05
Critical Value: 95% =
Degrees of freedom: n 1 or 49 1 or 48
Lower bound:
Upper bound: :
Margin of error:

3.
Construct a 98% confidence interval estimate for the population standard deviation of the
number of candies per bag. Show your work, including the computations and the critical values.
sample size = 49 degrees of freedom: 48 standard
deviation of the number of candies per bag: 8.868
2 = 78.639
2 = 29.707
2 = 76.154
(We used 50 on the Chi-Square Distribution Table, as it was closest to the 48 degrees of freedom)

Confidence interval estimate for :

4.
Discuss and interpret (with complete sentences) the results of each of your three interval
estimates.
We are 99% confident that the proportion of yellow candies is between .1704 and .2073.
We are 95% confident that the population mean of the number of candies per each bag is
between 58.64 and 63.76.
We are 98% confident that the standard deviation of the number of candies per bag is
between 7.04 and 11.27.

Part 5: Reflection

I have learned that sampling and different things learned in this project can
be used in other things, and not just the typical math scenarios. Working
with skittles made it interesting, and we were able to see that math is used in
lots of different things.
I think all math goes hand in hand, and what you learn in one math class will
somehow be used in the next. Even counting out a bag of skittles taught
about population vs sample, and how to find different things like the mean
and the confidence interval, and I think all those skills will be used in another
math class down the road.
I think the fact that we were working as a group will help in other classes as
well. Theres always going to be some type of group project whether its just

as partners, or another group, we have to know how to work with other

people.
We had to work until we came up with an answer, and there were a few times
that we would come up with different answers and we had to work through it
until we came to an agreement of what the answer was. I think thats a big
problem solving skill, and a good one to have because it could also help you
in the future (or present) workplace, and -again- in any future classes you
take. We had to keep going until we agreed on an answer, and once we did,
we could be confident that we were correct and we could move forward.
This class is funny, because Ive caught myself looking at real world things
and connecting it back to my class. A perfect example is my Tresemme
shampoo it says that 97% of women said this shampoo created more
volume, and I found myself thinking well, that means that they collected a
sample and 97% of the sample said yes, yada yada.. and its funny to me
that thats where my mind went. I dont quite know how this is going to help
me in my future career of being a special education teacher, I havent quite
figured that our yet, but it definitely was an interesting class to go through.