Statistics - Math 1040

What have you learned as a result of this project? 

This skittles data project has helped me understand all of the different ways you can compile and interpret information. Finding the five-number summary, probabilities, and comparing sample data and extrapolating to population predictions or larger population data sets.

Discuss how the math skills that you applied in this project will impact other classes you   will take in your school career. 

This class and the skills I have expanded on and built can be applied in so many different situations and classes. Whether it's based on scientific studies, real world situations, or for personal observations and records. In the realm of psychology, fitness, and nutrition; the skill of interpreting others' data in studies is very important. Many people don't know how to read studies, or know what the different graphs like histograms, box-plots, number tables, and distribution curves exhibit about the data. 

 Identify specific parts of the project and your own process in completing the project that may have applications for other classes.

Microsoft Excel is widely used in my work environment along with many other classes these days. Calculating probabilities, confidence intervals, mean, data outliers, and can be applied to practically any subject where data can be recorded. Certain aspects determining if the data can be trusted, whether correlation exists based on the amount of data, and how confident one could be in regards to the data.  

 Discuss how the project helped to develop your problem solving skills.  

The project helped develop my own problem solving skills by knowing how to display certain data, what the different types of data are, and how they can be used depending on what is trying to be solved for. For example if there for some reason for a complaint at the skittles factory showing there was an extreme shortage of red skittles, and all of the bags had the less appealing flavors like yellow and orange. We could find the specific deviation between the colors; based on the samples that were sampled. Essentially, being able to dispute or find out if the distribution bag-to-bag is really unequal on a significant level. 

 Discuss how this project changed the way you think about real-world math applications.  

This project specifically didn't change too much about what I think about real-world applications. I think it would be great to have a more meaningful subject and data reference that would spark my interest more. But it still is universal and many people know what skittles are and other candy of the sort. I'd say that it made me motivated to apply my knowledge and findings in real world data in regards to a subject I have passion for.