Sean Donovan

In Sean Donovan's career math class, high school students in Brewer, Maine, are using Skittles to get the mean, median, and mode of the color distribution across each pack.

Donovan says these skills are necessary for things like election polling, medical sampling, and more.

Senior Andre Lutz appreciates learning about math's real-world relevance.

He wants to study criminal justice.

As for the color distribution of Skittles, turns out it's pretty random, a lesson that also applies to the real world.

For NPR News, I'm Maddie Smith in Brewer, Maine.