Hazardous Waste How safe is your neighborhood? Are there any hazardous waste sites...

Hazardous Waste How safe is your neighborhood? Are there any hazardous waste sites nearby? The table shows the number of hazardous waste sites in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia in the year 2009:⁵

a. What variable is being measured? Is the variable discrete or continuous?

b. Describe the shape of the data distribution using the stem and leaf plot shown here. Identify the unusually large measurements marked “HI” by state.

Stem and Leaf Display: Hazardous Waste

c. Can you think of any reason these five states would have a large number of hazardous waste sites? What other variable might you measure to help explain why the data behave as they do?