Sampling Activity

In this activity we will try to get a sense of populations of objects by investigating how the samples drawn from those populations are distributed.

The populations consist of: red and yellow toothpicks, pennies and nickels, red and white candies
  1. Mix up the objects and, without looking, draw a sample of 5 objects from the bag. Record the number of yellow toothpicks, nickels, or red candies in your sample. Consider what this sample suggests about the population of objects in the bag.
  2. Put the sample back in the bag and mix thoroughly.
  3. Repeat this random sampling process 10 times. Keep track of the number of yellow toothpicks, nickels, or red candies in each sample. Record your results in a table .
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  4. Interpret your results in terms of what they suggest about the contents of the bag.
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