🍬 Sampling game v1.0

Candy Sampling Quest

Can a small handful of candy tell you what is inside the whole jar? Set up a secret candy mix, take random samples, and watch the estimate get better as the sample grows.

Start playing Teacher notes

1 Build the secret candy jar

One player enters the real numbers. Then hide them so the sampler only sees the total.

3 Watch the estimate

The pink bar shows the estimated percentage of Hershey's Kisses. The orange line shows the 95% confidence interval. After you reveal the truth, the black line shows the real percentage.

0Total candies sampled
—Estimated Kisses
—Margin of error
Enter the secret candy numbers, then draw a sample to begin.

Teacher notes

What this game teaches

Random samples can give useful estimates of a population proportion. As students collect more sampled candies, the estimate usually gets closer to the true jar proportion and the interval gets narrower.

Plain-language note about the interval

The 95% interval shown here is a simple teaching tool based on repeated random draws. It helps students see uncertainty, but it should not be treated as a perfect statistical method for every situation.

Discussion questions
  1. How close was your first sample to the true candy mix?
  2. What happened when you collected more samples?
  3. Did a larger total sample make the interval wider or narrower?
  4. Where do people use samples instead of counting every single person or item?
  5. What could go wrong if the sample was not random?