To: "Quandaries and Queries Consultants"
Sender: David
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 06:33:43 -0700
Subject: histograms

I need some help to teach my daughter the functions and the techniques involved in solving histograms. She is in the 7th grade and is in a prealgebra class.

She was give these as homework, however there is no section in her book explaining what a histogram is or how to solve them.
Thanks!


Hi David,

A histogram is one of the most common ways to graphicaly display data. To construct a histogram the data is organized in classes and a count is made of the number of observations in each class. The histogram displays the data with the classes on the horozontal axis and a vertical bar above each class to represent the count in that class.

Here is an example. Suppose that a teacher has 30 students and gives them each a coin. Each student is to toss the coin 6 times and count the number of heads they get. So each student get a number between 0 and 6 and the teacher then records these 30 numbers, one for each student. This data set of 30 items is then organized by recording the number of students who got 0 heads, the number who got 1 head, and so on. I simulated this experiment and here ae the 30 numbers I got from the students.

2, 4, 0, 5, 0, 2, 2, 3, 2, 4, 3, 5, 3, 3, 3, 4, 2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 2, 4, 4, 5, 4, 1, 3, 2, 4

I then organized this data into classes as follows:

ClassCount
(number of heads )(number of students)
02
11
27
36
410
54
60

The histogram for this data is then:

Cheers,
Penny


Go to Math Central

To return to the previous page use your browser's back button.