Monday, March 25, 2013

Probability Stations

I love stations and I love chromebooks.   The chromebook cart is not available this week so I plan on borrowing just a few chromebooks for stations :)

Station 1 - Coin Toss

Chromebooks will be set on this page:













Questions posted at station:

1. If I toss a coin, what are the possible outcomes?  What is the probability of each outcome?

2. If I toss a coin twice, what are the possible outcomes?  What is the probability of each outcome?

3. If I toss a coin 10 times, how many would you expect to land on heads.  Enter 10 in the number of tosses, click start and record your results. 

4. If I toss a coin 50 times, how many would you expect to land on heads?  Enter 50 in the number of tosses, click start and record your results.

5. If I toss a coin 100 times, how many would you expect to land on heads?  Enter 100 in the number of tosses, click start and record your results. 

6. As you increase the number of tosses….do you notice anything about your data?  Why is this?  


Station 2 - 

Chromebooks will be set on this page:



















Questions posted at station:

1. If I spin the spinner, what are the possible outcomes?  What is the probability of each outcome?

2. If I spin the spinner twice, what are the possible outcomes?  What is the probability of each outcome?

3. If I was to spin the spinner 20 times, how many times would you expect it to land on yellow?  Spin the spinner 20 times…. How many times does it actually land on yellow?  Explain why these answers might be different.

4. Create a spinner that has the following probabilities and draw it on your recording sheet:
    10% yellow
    10% purple
    20% orange
    20% red
    40% blue (because you know it is my favorite color)


Station 3 - Guess What's in the Bag? 

At station 3 I will have a brown paper bag with colored blocks or tiles or something inside.  
   
Questions posted at station 3:

1. Without looking, reach into the bag and choose an item.  Put the item back in the back and then draw again.  Repeat 10 times and record the colors of the 10 items you have drawn.

2. There are 20 items in the bag.  Based on your results from #1, predict how many items of each color are present in the bag.

3. Is it possible there are colors in the bag that you did not choose during #1?  Explain why or why not.

4. Look in the bag and write a fraction to represent each color.

5. How did your experimental probabilities compare to the theoretical probabilities?  


Station 4 - Deal or No Deal 

Chromebooks will be set to this page:




















At this station, students will pick up this handout:

















Most of the work at this station will be completed/shown on the handout, but I will have an instructions page with a few questions.

1. Choose your briefcase.

2. Open 6 briefcases.  As you are opening, cross off any opened amounts on the provided pages.

3. You will be given a bank offer… record this offer in the table on the right of the provided page by round 1.  How many briefcases are remaining with more than that offer?  How many briefcases are remaining total?  Calculate the probability of winning more than the bank offer.   Discuss as a group-  deal or no deal?

4. Continue to play the game, completing steps on the pages as you work. 

5. On your recording sheet, tell me how many rounds you played and your final winnings. 



Station 5 - Tree Diagrams

Draw tree diagrams for the following probability experiments and then answer the questions.

1. Rolling two dice.  What is the probability of rolling doubles?

2. Flipping a coin three times.  What is the probability of flipping 3 of the same thing?

3. Rolling a dice and tossing a coin.  What is the probability of rolling an even number and flipping heads? 



Station 6 - Marble Outcomes

Chromebooks will be set on this page:
















Questions posted at station 6:

1. Follow steps given by the program.  How did you select if a red or blue marble appearing was impossible, unlikely, even change, likely, or certain?

2. Click the lever to pick a random marble.  Then click reset.  In 12 picks, how many times is each color picked?

3. Are the numbers what you expected?  Why or why not? 

4. What is the theoretical probability of each color being chosen?

5. Click reset, and then choose 12 marbles randomly again.  Are the numbers the same or different? Why? 

6.  How many red marbles would have to be in the machine to be certain of a red marble being chosen? 



I have 6 student groups of 3-5 students.  I have 90 minute classes so I set the timer for about 6-8 minutes per station.  This gives me time for warm-up at the beginning of class, time for them to move between stations when I say "rotate" and time to discuss each station at the end of class.  If students don't finish a station, it isn't a big deal, as long as they were working the entire time.

Students fold a blank sheet of paper into fourths-  giving 8 sections front and back.  They number the boxes and complete answers to each question in the coordinating box.  This leaves me two boxes to have them try problems again, take notes, or complete a ticket to leave once we have discussed each station as a class.  

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