Comparing Excursions
You have just collected lots of information about
excursions on your Collecting Data Worksheet. You could use this data
to answer all sorts of different questions. For instance, you could
find out which excursion was cheapest, which excursion carried the
most people, which excursion needed the largest number of crew
members, and so on.
However, you are going to answer just one question: What type of
power is most efficient for an excursion boat? We are measuring
efficiency by the number of passengers a boat can carry. If a boat
can carry more passengers, it can serve the recreational needs of more
people at one time. In this way it is efficient.
To answer this question, look at the information on your Worksheet.
You will create a bar graph that shows how many passengers were
carried by excursion boats that used different kinds of power. First
you will need to categorize the trips into three groups: sail powered,
steam powered, and diesel powered.
On Worksheet 2: Analyzing Data,
fill in the three columns of the table, labeling each
with the types of power used by the boats. The excursion numbers
1-10 are listed along the side of the table. Then list the number of passengers
for each excursion that you recorded on your Data Collection
Worksheet. Your table should look like the one below. Some of the
data has been filled in for you as an example. In row one, for
example, the number 100 is placed in the steam power column because
100 passengers can go on the steam powered Chesapeake at one time.
When you are finished categorizing your information according to the number of passengers by the three kinds of power, you will try to answer the question "What type of power is most efficient for excursion boats?" Determining the Median of a Column of Numbers: Sometimes it is easier to compare data if you can find a number that all of the numbers in a column are most like, or a central tendency. For example, in our sample of excursion boats, you could compare just one number for each type of power. Then there will be no question about which is largest, smallest, and in the middle, or in other words, which type of power is most and least efficient. You need to find the median, or central tendency, for each of the three categories. Find the median by listing the numbers from smallest to largest. Then find the middle number in your list. This number is the median. If the middle of the list falls between two numbers, find the number that falls exactly between these two numbers. To do this, find the mean average of the two middle numbers. In other words, add the two numbers together and divide by 2. Look at the examples below. Example One: 100 Median is 355, the number exactly between 210 and 500. Example Two: 12 Median is 17, middle number in the list. Finding the median will let you compare the categories of excursion boats without comparing specific boats. It will allow you to see if the type of power an excursion boat used affected how many passengers it could carry. Now find the median for the three types of power of the excursion boats. Write it on the space provided on Worksheet #2: Analyzing Data. |
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