Dayna Van Cott

Holly Kersich
Roman Franco
Diana Lucas

Math 1040 Skittles Term Project

Introduction:

This term project allows my group and I to pull together many concepts that we’ve been studying this semester. This includes
organizing and analyzing data, drawing conclusions, using confidence intervals and hypothesis testing. Each person in our class
purchased a 2.17 ounce bag of Original Skittles, and formed into groups of 3-5 people. Each group recorded the proportion of skittle
colors per bag as well as the amount of skittles per bag. These are my group’s findings.

Organizing and Displaying Categorical Data: Colors

Class Total Amount of Class Skittles Color

Total Amount of Class Skittles Skittles by Color Proportion
Color # of Skittles Class Proportion
Orange
Green
275
251
0.223
0.203
280
Yellow 245 0.199 210 Red Orange
Purple 241 0.195 18.0% 22.3%
Red 222 0.180 140
Total 1234 1.000 70 Purple
Green
0 19.5%
Orange Yellow Red Yellow 20.3%
19.9%

Class vs Group Skittles Color

Proportion
My Group’s Skittles
Color # of Skittles Group Proportion 0.230
Orange 50 0.212
Green 45 0.191
Yellow 53 0.225 0.173
Purple 44 0.186
Red 44 0.186
Total 236 1.000
0.115

0.058
Our group’s observation of the data is pretty comparable
to what we thought our data would look like. We 0.000
assumed the amount of skittles per color would be fairly
consistent, with a small sample standard deviation. Our
Orange Green Yellow Purple Red
data shows minimal proportion differences between the
Skittle colors overall. The most significant difference in
proportion would be for the yellow Skittles, which Class Proportion
showed a 2.6% difference. Group Proportion

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 Organizing and Displaying Quantitative Data: the Number of Candies per Bag

Class Total # of Candies per Bag

Mean, SD, 5 # Summary

Mean 58.8
Standard Deviation 1.81
Min 54
Q1 58
Med 59
Q3 60
Max 61

Class Bags of Skittles & Amount per Bag

Bag # Amount per Bag Class bags of Skittles compared to the amount of Skittles per bag
1 60
2 58
3 59
4 60
5 56
6 57
7 54
8 61
9 58
10 58
11 60
12 57
13 59
14 61
15 59
16 61
17 61
18 60
19 58
20 59
21 58

Group bags of Skittles compared to the amount of Skittles per bag

Group Bags of Skittles & Amount per Bag
Bag # Amount per Bag
1 59
2 61
3 58
4 58

Our observations of the class data for the amount

of skittles per bag show that our data is skewed to
the left. Honesty, we thought we would’ve seen
more of bell curve with the sample amount that
was given. The overall data collected by the while
class doesn't agree with our group’s data. Our
group data shows a histogram skewed to the right.
This information didn't surprise us as we only had 4
bags with half of them containing 58 skittles. Who
knows? Maybe some students in the class became
hungry and that may have accounted for the class
data minimum number and would be an
explanation of why the class data was skewed to
the left.

Reflection:

The difference between qualitative and quantitative data is that quantitative data has
numbers that you can do something with, such as counts or measurements, while
qualitative data takes numbers and places them into categories. Pie charts and Pareto
charts are best used for qualitative data because these charts show the separate
categories. For our Skittles project, the color proportions in each bag would be considered

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 charts are best used for qualitative data because these charts show the separate
categories. For our Skittles project, the color proportions in each bag would be considered
our qualitative data and are represented by both a Pie & Pareto chart. Histogram graphs
and box plots would not be appropriate for qualitative data because the numbers given do
not show a greater significance over the other (Ie. red skittles aren’t superior to green
skittles) and therefore these graphs are unable to show the categories.

Histograms and box plots are used for quantitative data, and these graphs are able to
show what we can do with these numbers (Ie. there is a greater amount of red skittles vs.
green skittles). For our Skittles project, the amount of skittles per bag is our quantitive
data.Interpretations for qualitative data would be counts or percentages, while
interpretations for quantitative data would be the distribution of the data.

Confidence Interval Estimates:

A confidence interval is a range of values that we are fairly certain that our true value lies
in. The general purpose and meaning of a confidence interval to take a sample of
something and make an inference about the entire population + or - error.

Bag # Red Orange Yellow Green Purple Total

1 10 7 12 15 16 60
2 10 9 15 14 10 58
3 10 17 7 15 10 59
4 14 13 12 13 8 60
5 14 13 13 10 6 56
6 10 13 11 13 10 57
7 7 10 11 13 13 54
8 11 11 17 7 15 61
9 8 16 9 13 12 58
10 11 15 10 12 10 58
11 10 13 11 12 14 60
12 12 15 9 8 13 57
13 9 12 17 10 11 59
14 16 10 14 12 9 61
15 10 8 17 17 7 59
16 8 20 6 13 14 61
17 12 16 10 11 12 61
18 10 14 10 14 12 60
19 10 16 14 7 11 58
20 8 17 8 12 14 59
21 12 10 12 10 14 58
Total 222 275 245 251 241 1234

The first confidence interval estimate that we calculated was a 99%

CI level of true proportion of yellow candies. Our answer was (.
16929, .22779) or can be written as .16929<p<.22779 . This means
that we are 99% confident that our interval contains the true
proportion of all yellow candies.

Our second confidence interval estimate that we calculated was a 95%

CI level for the true mean number of candies per bag. Our answer was
(57.936 59.588). This means that we are 95% confident that our
interval contains the true mean number of candies per bag.

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Hypothesis Tests:

Hypothesis testing is done in an attempt to prove or disapprove a

claim. There is sufficient or not sufficient evidence to warrant the
rejection of the claim.

The conditions that need to be met when doing an interval estimates and hypothesis tests
include: the data must be random, the data must have normal distribution, >10 success
and failure on each, n<10% then population size, and the observations must be
independent. For a hypothesis, they also must have two possible outcomes. One that fails
and one that is a success. Errors could have occurred in the counting of the samples, not
counting all of the samples and errors in the math we did. We could improve our sampling
by doing a higher number of samples.

In conclusion, we can say that there is not sufficient evidence to support the claim that
20% of all Skittles are red. We can also say that there is sufficient evidence to warrant
rejection that the mean number of candies in a bag of skittles is 55. We can say that with
a 99% confidence that the proportion of total of yellow skittles is between (.17 and .228)
We can say that we are 98% confident that the mean number of candies in a bag is
between (58.63, 58.89)