Rachel Miller

Math 1040
Ms. Jaussi
Introduction
Our project is to conduct a proportion experiment for colors of
Skittles. We hope to accumulate an accurate count of each color of
Skittles in a 2.17oz. Original Skittles bag. To accomplish this, all
students purchased a 2.17 bag of Original Skittles. Then we all counted
each color in the bag- Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, and Purple. Follow
me through our projects process!
Next we reported these number to our teacher to get a larger
count from each student combines.
My original number of Skittles looked like this :

Red

Orang
e

Yello
w

14

13

Green

Purpl
e

Total

14

59

The Classs Numbers of Original Skittles looked like this :

Red
14
15
9
12
14
11
24
11
15
12
11
7
10
10
18

Orang
e
15
13
13
11
9
15
19
11
18
15
12
12
14
11
10

Yello
w
9
10
14
13
13
9
19
16
12
9
10
9
10
13
10

Purpl
Green
e
14
11
12
16
9
14
17
11
13
11
14
20
10
12
10

11
11
9
8
14
10
18
11
7
13
12
14
17
13
12

Total
63
60
57
60
59
59
97
60
65
60
59
62
61
59
60

We had a grand total of 941 Skittles counted Red had a total of

193. Orange had 198. Yellow had 176. Green had 194. Purple had
180.
Organizing and Displaying Categorical Data: Colors
After collecting this data we determined the proportion of each
color. My data looked like this :
Proportions = Numer of candies divided by total

0.19

Red

Orange
0.21

0.21

Yellow

Green
0.21

Purple

0.19

Pareto Chart for the Numbers of Candies of each Color

Porportions

0.22
0.21
0.21
0.2
0.2
0.19
0.19
0.18
0.18

Red

Orange

Yellow

Green

Purple

Colors of the Candies

With he charts as visuals, I can see more clearly the data given
to us. With the Pie Chart all of the proportions give the perception that
they are about equal. The numbers really give you a better indication
of which colors are more common proportionately. Now, with the
Pareto Chart I see a different situation. I see Orange having the highest

number of candies. I also can see that Yellow has the lowest number of
candies. The numbers dont look as close to each other as in the Pie
Chart. This sets of a slight alarm to me. Why could the charts be so
different? My first guess would be that the Pareto Chart does not start
at 0, but at .175 My next guess would be is that the 3-D animation of
the pie chart may make the pieces seem more similar.
Organizing and Displaying Qualitative Data: the Number of Candies per
Bag
Here we will find the Mean number of candies per bag. For those
of us who do not remember, Mean is the sum of all of the data values
divided by the number of data values. I will also be finding the Max
number (larges number in the sequence) , the Median number(Middle
number of the data values) , Minimum number( smallest number in the
sequence), as well as the first Quartile ( This is the separation of the
bottom 25% and top 75% of the values) and Third Quartile ( this is the
separation of the bottom 75% and the top 25% of the values).
The Mean
M= 118.2

= 8.59
Minimum number = 176
Quartile 1= 178
Median = 193
Quartile 3 = 196
Maximum number = 198
Now with this information I will construct a Box-Plot:
To create the Box- plot I used all of the information we had
collected. The box-plot consists of the ends of the lines being the max
and min. The beginning line of box is the 1st Quartile. The line dividing
the box is the Median, and the line on the end of the box is the 3rd
Quartile

After the Box-Plot, I will create a Frequency Histogram with this

information:
Using the Original Data I created this Frequency Histogram. What
is a frequency Histogram? It is a Histogram (a graph consisting of bars
that are equal and touching one another) of the Frequency, or the
number of times number occurs in its class. . We create a class, (ex. )
of the numbers, so that we do not have to make a bar for every
number! We have a total of 5 classes. To find the limits, where to start
the class and where to end it, we subtract the min form the max, and
divide by the number of classes. We get this (198-176)/ 5 = 4.4, we
then round up to get 5, our frequencys will be 0-5,6-10,11-15,16-20,
and 17-25.
Here is what I created from this

Skittles in Each Color

43

21

10

1
0

From this data I can see that many things. First in the box -plot I
can see that there are no outliers of the information. In the Frequency
though I can see it is strange to have more than 20 of any of the
colors. Just like it is strange to have less than 6 in a color. I can see that
it is most common to 11 to15 skittles of each color. With the
fruequency histogram we see a normal distribution in a bell curve
shape. I feel that the Frequency Histogram can tell us a lot more then
the box-plot can. The box plot just summarizes our 5-number
summary. The class data is very close to my original data.
Reflection:
Categorical data and quantitative data, you may recognize these
words from the titles of the last two sections. What do these words
mean? Well, categorical data is data consisting of names that are not
numbers (Red, Orange, Yellow, ect). It is also referred to as qualitative
data. Quantitative data is numbers, it is numbers representing a count
( 1,2,3,4, ect.).
Now, this may seem confusing, because we did use numbers in
both. In our categorical pie chart and Pareto Chart we are having
theses numbers be labeled by a color, that are that color. Where as, in
the quantitative data we have only numbers, no representation of
something else, they are just numbers to show us information about,

the numbers. We would not use a 5- number summary to represent

each color, that is just numbers, numbers, numbers. But, the same
goes for the pie graph, we should not use a pie chart to tell us the
minimum number of each color.
Quick trick to remember: CategoricaL= Label
QuaNtitative = Numbers