Part 1: Proposal

Choose a question about anything that can be answered by reporting a percentage and that you could answer by collecting data. For example, you might ask:

• What percent of M & Ms in a bag are red?
• What percent of 12th graders in my school want to go to college out of state?
• What percent of students have at least 2 siblings?
• What percent of people in my neighborhood flew on an airplane in the last 12 months?

These are just some examples of the kinds of questions that you might be interested in asking. Choose a question that interests you, and that you could conceivably collect data for. (A question like "What percent of students in my class will eventually graduate from college?" might be a really important question to ask, but it's hard to see how you could collect data that would answer it without having to wait at least 4 years.)

Write a brief proposal, using complete sentences, explaining the following:

1. What question do you intend to investigate? (For example, "I want to know what percent of the M & Ms in a bag are red." or "I want to know what percent of students have at least 2 siblings.")
2. What do you think the answer will be? This doesn't have to be based on anything other than a hunch, but be clear about what you expect (for example, "I think about 15% of a bag of M & Ms will be red" or "I think about 60% of the students at my school have at least 2 siblings.")
3. How you intend to collect data? (For example, "I will open several bags of M & Ms, including different size and variety bags, and I will count the total number of M & Ms and the number of M & Ms that are red." or "I will ask my English teacher to distribute a 1-question anonymous survey to all of her classes asking how many siblings each student has."
4. What will your sample size be? (For example, "I will keep opening bags until I have a sample of at least 200 M & Ms altogether." or "My sample size will be about 150 students.")