The purpose of this activity is to engage students in considering another’s statement about the probability of an outcome in a game of chance.
This activity assumes the students have experience in the following areas:
The problem is sufficiently open ended to allow the students freedom of choice in their approach. It may be scaffolded with guidance that leads to a solution, and/or the students might be given the opportunity to solve the problem independently.
The example responses at the end of the resource give an indication of the kind of response to expect from students who approach the problem in particular ways.
Maddie and Max are playing Memory Tens. Here are their cards.
They’ve turned them over like this and mixed them up.
They are taking turns to turn over two cards. If the pair adds to ten, the person keeps them. Maddie goes first. She turns these cards over.
Max says, “ Now I’m sure to get a pair that makes ten next.”
Do you agree with Max? Say why or why not.
Note to teacher: This activity requires materials for illustration. Make playing cards available.
The following prompts illustrate how this activity can be structured around the Statistical Enquiry Cycle.
The problem section is about what data to collect and who to collect it from and why it’s important.
The planning section is about how students will gather the data.
The data section is concerned with how the data is managed and organised.
The analysis section is about exploring the data and reasoning with it.
The conclusion section is about answering the question in the problem section and providing reasons based on their analysis.
The student initially thinks that Maddie getting a pair means that Max will also do the same. After trialing Max’s turn with cards they realise that Max is not guaranteed to get a pair of numbers that add to ten.
Click on the image to enlarge it. Click again to close.
The student realises that the chance of Max getting a pair of numbers that add to ten is uncertain because the choice of cards is not controlled.
Printed from https://meaningfulmaths.nt.edu.au/mmws/nz/resource/will-he-won-t-he at 8:50pm on the 26th February 2024