Skittles Graphing Activity
Goal: To review graphing concepts, including sample size, central tendency, making and analyzing graphs.
Materials needed:
 Skittles package
 Worksheet
 Graph and line paper
 Pencils
Investigations (Answer these before you open your candy.)
1) How many Skittles do you think your bag contains? _______
2) Do you think each bag will contain the same number of candies? Explain why or why
not.________________________ ____________________________________________________
3) What colors do you think you will find in your bag? ______________________________________________
4) Why do you think these colors are inside?
___________________________________________________________________________________________
5) Do you think that every student have the same number of each color in their bag as you have in your bag?
Explain your answer. _____________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Activities:
Pour out your Skittles. Sort them by color.
Part A:
1. Record your information in the ‘group A’ section of the chart. For the ‘average’ section find the mean of each
colour.
2. Afterwards, gather the data from the other groups in the class and add the information to the groups below
‘group A’.
Colour of Skittles
Purple
Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Group E
Group F
Group G
Group H
Group I
Total
Average
Green
Yellow
Orange
Red
Total
Part B:
Graph the following using as many different types of graphs that make sense for the data:
-to display your own data (from your Skittles bag)
-to display the averages from the entire class (all the Skittles bags)
Questions:
1. Why did you choose your types of graphs? What types of graphs should you not use for the data and why?
2. Are the graphs made for the two types of data the same? Are there any similarities?
3. Do you think that all bags of Skittles have the same number of each colour of candy in them?
4. Is the data you collected to compare the averages of the class come from a census or sample survey? Explain.
5. If you were completing this activity to compare the class averages to all skittle packages worldwide, would you
consider this a census survey or a sample survey? Explain.