Mini-course 4: Batches - Facts About Food

This mini-course from the Nuffield Exploratory Data Skills Project: Making Sense of Data is about looking at, analysing and comparing batches of data. In this mini-course students should learn how to:

• look at a batch in terms of level, spread, distribution and outliers
• make a dotplot
• make a stem and leaf plot
• find the median, hinges and H-spread of a batch
• make a box and whisker plot
• identify outliers on a box and whisker plot
• makes a histogram, on a suitable scale with a suitable number of bins
• compare batches for level and variability (spread)
• compare level and spread using a box and whisker plot
• compare distributions using histograms
• see skew in a histogram or a box and whisker plot

The mini-course consists of six units

How much energy? will be necessary to remind students of the importance of looking at the data by eye before starting to make pictures or choose techniques.

Carbohydrates  introduces stem and leaf plots, and will be required if these are not already known. It also introduces the median, hinges and H-spread as measures of level and spread.

Vitamins and minerals uses median and hinges to show how to make box and whisker plots

How much water? uses the stem and leaf idea to introduce histograms.

Comparing Calories uses both box and whisker plots and histograms to compare batches.

How much choice do you have? looks at differences in distribution.

The teacher guide gives an overview of the mini-course.