Producing Data Project
Name________________________
How Many Jellybeans are in the Bowl?
1.
Make a guess of the number of jellybeans in the bowl. Write your guess here.
2. Now it’s time to do some “fishing”. Using the “fishing pole” (AKA, spoon), remove a small amount of
jellybeans. How many did you remove?
How many total did the whole group remove?
3. We will now replace the jellybeans that were removed with the same number of purple jellybeans.
(This is similar to the procedure used by Wildlife Conservation Agents when they capture, tag, and
release wildlife.)
Write the number of replacement here.
4. Let’s stir the jellybeans to mix in the purple ones.
5. Use the “fishing pole” to remove a sample of the jellybeans from the bowl. This represents an
SRS.
6. Count the jellybeans that have been removed.
# in total:
# of purple:
7. Return the sample back to the bowl. Have each member of the group repeat the same sampling
method.
8. Write a proportion and solve for the total number of jellybeans in the jar.
9. Now let’s compare your result with the actual total. Dump the bowl and count the jellybeans.
Write the total here.
10. Having been through this process, use your knowledge to answer the following question:
The Wisconsin Conservation Commission is to determine the size of the Canadian geese population
in the state of Wisconsin. You are to design a capture-recapture procedure that could be used
to estimate the size of the flock.