M&M’S PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS
SUBJECT AREA: MATHEMATICS AND STATISTICS
DESCRIPTION: Are all M&M’s represented equally? Students will investigate the claim that Mars Inc. has previously made that green
M&M’s make up 16% of all milk chocolate M&M’s produced.
LESSON OBJECTIVE: Students will make a hypothesis based on the claim Mars Inc. has made about the color proportions of green
M&M’s by collecting and analyzing a sample population of colors in a package of M&M’s. Students will learn how to chart and graph
their results while constructing a viable argument that their claim is true or false.
MATERIALS/SUPPLIES:
• Bag of M&M’s (regular full-size packages work best, but this can be done with fun size)
• Paper towel
• Printed handout
• Markers
ACTIVITY PROCEDURES:
1. Introduce the activity to students. Have each student write down a hypothesis.
Hypothesis examples could include answering: Will one color be the most predominant? Will the color green be found more or less
than 16% of the packages? What colors will be the most or least frequently found in the packages?
2. Have each student open their package of M&M’s and begin counting the colors of the individual candies on the paper towel. No eat-
ing the M&M’s for now — but have students wash their hands if they plan to eat the candy afterward. Have students tally their results
on the printed handout.
a. If students are working with fun-size packages, pair them up into groups of three or four and have them tally their results
together.
3. Complete the handout by finding the frequency of each of the M&M’s colors. To find the frequency, divide the number of each color
by the number of M&M’s.
4. Have each student use the back of the handout to create a bar or pie chart of their results.
5. Bring class together to report and discuss results.
DISCUSSION AREA AND QUESTIONS:
• Were any bags of M&M’s or groups off target compared to the rest of the class?
• Configure all data to make one large data set. Compare those statistics with the Mars Inc. claim about green M&M’s.
• Based on the data we have found today, does the data match up with the Mars Inc. claim about green M&M’s?
• How did your personal hypotheses match up with what you found?
• How do companies use data for marketing purposes? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this?
Adapted from Patricia Michno, WSU Mike Ilitch School of Business
