This applet demonstrates how changing the size of the groups along the horizontal-axis of a histogram can radically affect the shape of the diagram and the conclusions that can be drawn from it. (You will need to be on-line to view this.)

This applet demonstrates how changing the size of the groups along the horizontal-axis of a histogram can radically affect the shape of the diagram and the conclusions that can be drawn from it.

The histogram shown is for the heights in centimetres of 500 randomly selected pupils from CensusAtSchool. Pupils should interactively change the class width by dragging the arrow underneath the histogram and look carefully at the resulting diagram. The question to answer is- What class width do you think provides the best picture of the underlying data? (Try using class widths of roughly 20, 10 and 5)

You can use this applet to draw a histogram of your own data. Go to 'View' - 'Source' and replace the data with your own. It will now show your data!