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MAKE A HISTOGRAM OF PEAS We have here a large bag of fresh peas, still in their pods, a paper plate so we won't be messy, a ruler, and pencil and paper to make notes. Open a pea pod by grasping both ends ofthe pod and slowly bend the pod in the same direction it already is a little bent. This will break the seal on the pod. Spread open the pod now, and look inside. See the peas hanging in there? Count them, and make a note on your paper. Measure the pod, and write down the length of the pod beside the number of peas you found in it. Open nine more pods, and write down the number of peas in each one, measure the pods, and write down their lengths beside the number of peas. Now, we'll make a histogram (pronounced "hist-oh- gram"), which is a kind of graph that makes a picture of the information we have learned. Draw a straight line across your paper, from one side to the other side. Look on your list of numbers of peas found in the pods, and choose the lowest number. Put that number on the left side of your paper, below the line. Look at your list again, and find the highest number of peas found in the pods, and write that number on the right side of your paper, below the line. The smallest number of peas I found was 3, and the greatest number of peas I found was 9. My line has "3" at one end and "9" at the other end. In between the "3" and the "9", I will write "4", "5", "6", "7", and "8", each number being the same distance away from the next number. This is how you want to begin your histograms. We will open more pods, and count the peas. Instead of writing down the number of peas, we will look for that number on the histogram, and put an "X" above the line, over the number that is already written there. When there is another pod with the same number of peas, just put the "X" above the"X" that is over the number already written. Some numbers will have long columns of "X"s above them. When we finish opening all the pods, we can look for the longest column of "X"s, and that will be the number of peas that is usually in a pod. This is called the "average" (pronounced "avv-er-idge") number of peas found in a pod. It might look like this: x x x x x x x x x x x ÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄÀÄ 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 In that histogram, the average number of peas in a pod is 5. I have a few pods left. I'll pass them out so you each have one. You can play a guessing game with it. How many peas do you think will be in that pod after you open it? Look at your histogram, and it will tell you how many peas were in most of the pods you already opened, and decide how many peas are probably in this last pod. Now open the pod, and count the peas to see if your last pod had the same number of peas as the histogram's average. Look up at your list again, and notice the lengths of the pods you opened. Do you think that longer pods have more peas in them then shorter pods? Were there more long pods than short pods? You could make another histogram to show the average length of pods, and also decide if long pods mean more peas. Peas are food, and we don't waste food. All the peas we have counted can be washed and eaten. Some people just love to eat raw peas, and some people prefer them cooked. We can eat some without cooking them, and we can cook the rest of them in a little water for a few minutes. Do cooked peas taste the same as raw peas? Which way do you like them the most? Like other plants, peas have a "season," which means the time of year that they can be picked from the plants and sold. There is a short time each year that they are ripe, just like apples, peaches and everything else we eat which has grown from a plant. The next group who does this experiment will have to use green beans or black-eyed peas (which are really beans). Beans cannot be eaten raw, and will have to be cooked before we eat them. When we do this in the winter, we will use canned whole green beans. That will be messy, but it will still be fun! We can do this with any kind of fruit or vegetable that has more than one seed inside. If we used peaches or cherries, it wouldn't be fun, and we couldn't make a histogram, because.....Why can't we do it with peaches or cherries?  Any problems with this page? Send URL to
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