Question

lesson 14 | session 1
3 mei is a park ranger at death valley national park in california.
she records the elevation relative to sea level at different points
in the park.
elevation (m) -32.6 24.7 -8.3 19.1 -8.4
a. what is the mean of the elevations? show your work.

solution
b. check your answer to problem 3a. show your work.

Explanation:

Step1: Find the sum of elevations

$$\begin{align*} &(- 32.6)+24.7+(-8.3)+19.1+(-8.4)\\ =&(24.7 + 19.1)+[(-32.6)+(-8.3)+(-8.4)]\\ =&43.8+(-49.3)\\ =&43.8 - 49.3\\ =&- 5.5 \end{align*}$$

Step2: Calculate the mean

The number of data points \(n = 5\). The formula for the mean \(\bar{x}=\frac{\sum_{i = 1}^{n}x_{i}}{n}\). So \(\bar{x}=\frac{-5.5}{5}=-1.1\)

Answer:

The mean of the elevations is \(-1.1\) m.