Purpose
To determine how probable it is that you will reach in a jar and pull out a certain color of M&M.
Additional information
It is important for people to know how probable something is – how likely is it that someone will win the lottery? How likely is it that someone will have an adverse reaction to a medication? Statistical trials can help people figure out how likely an outcome is.
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Required materials
1 bag of M&M’s
Several plastic cups
Journal or logbook
Calculator
Estimated Experiment Time
A few hours.
Step-By-Step Procedure
1. Open the bag of M&M’s and count how many there are total in the bag. Record this number in your journal. For exemplary purposes, let’s say that there are 100 in the bag.
2. Divide them into color groups and put each group in the plastic cups – yellow will go in one cup, red in another and so on.
3. Count how many of each color M&M there are and record this in your logbook or journal. Let’s say there are 25 yellow M&M’s and 50 blue ones.
4. What is the ratio of each color of M&M compared to the total number of M&M’s? In our example, there are 25 yellow M&M’s out of 100 total M&M’s. This means that for every four M&M’s, one of them is yellow. There are also 50 blue M&M’s out of 100 in our example, meaning that for every four M&M’s there are, two of them will be blue. You can reduce that by saying that for every two M&M’s in our example, one of them is blue.
5. Record all information and data in your logbook and use it to create a graph.
Note
Remember to do your calculations more than once to ensure complete accuracy!
Observation
In our example, the probability of selecting a blue M&M out of the bag of 100 M&M’s was one in two. There was also a one in four probability that you would choose a yellow M&M in the example. What are the probabilities of choosing each color in your bag of M&M’s?
Result
It is likely that it will be more probable for you to choose one color out of the bag of M&M’s than another. Which color are you most likely to choose? How can this experiment be applied to real life situations?