A large bowl of dried beans (or marbles, plastic beads, or any other small, fairly regular objects) and a coin. In this activity, you will investigate whether people can hold more in the right hand or in the left hand.

1. Flip a coin to determine which hand you will measure first. If the coin lands heads side up, start with the right hand. If the coin lands tails side up, start with the left hand. With the designated hand, reach into the bowl and grab as many beans as possible. Raise the hand over the bowl and count to 4. If no beans drop during the count to 4, drop the beans onto a piece of paper and record the number of beans grabbed. If any beans drop during the count, restart the count. That is, you must hold the beans for a count of 4 without any beans falling before you can determine the number grabbed. Repeat the process with the other hand, and then record the following information: (1) Right-hand number,  (2) Left-hand number,  (3) Dominant hand (left or right, depending on whether you are left- or righthanded).

2. Create a class data set by recording the values of the three variables listed in Step 1 for each student in your class.

3. Using the class data set, construct a comparative stemand-leaf display with the right-hand counts displayed on the right and the left-hand counts displayed on the left of the stem-and-leaf display. Comment on the interesting features of the display and include a comparison of the righthand count and left-hand count distributions.

4. Now construct a comparative stem-and-leaf display that allows you to compare dominant-hand count to nondominant- hand count. Does the display support the theory that dominant-hand count tends to be higher than nondominant-hand count?

5. For each observation in the data set, compute the difference dominant-hand count  − nondominant-hand count  Construct a stem-and-leaf display of the differences. Comment on the interesting features of this display.

6. Explain why looking at the distribution of the differences (Step 5) provides more information than the comparative stem-and-leaf display (Step 4). What information is lost in the comparative display that is retained in the display of the differences?