Spring SAVY 2018, Day 5- Probability and Prediction (Kindergarten)
This week we continued our work with theoretical and experimental probability. First we started with a question about favorite ice cream flavors. We polled the class and used the results to think about a hypothetical ice cream shop. We talked about how knowing customers’ favorite flavors might help us with ordering ice cream for the store. We also talked about what other things might happen when a customer orders. Students talked about how they don’t always order their favorite flavor, and sometimes they like to try something new. The question about ice cream helped us think about data but also gave us a chance to consider the “human factor.”
We did some more experiments with dice. We predicted how many rolls it would take us to get 1-6 on a die. At first the students were thinking that it would be 6-8 rolls, but then we started talking about how we sometimes roll a bunch of 2’s before we ever roll a 5, for example. The students revised their predictions to the 10-20 range, and we talked about why these were better predictions. One student mentioned that it could take 100 rolls, and this gave us a chance to put that in context, too. We revisited the discussion about possible vs. likely. Our results fell inside that 10-20 range with the exception of one student. It took him 27 rolls, and we talked about how that wasn’t too much of an outlier. The next experiment was similar except it was with 2 dice, and we were trying to roll all the different combinations of 2 dice. We decided that 100 would be a better prediction for that experiment. One student was successful, and it took her 88 rolls to get all the combinations! What persistence!
We are looking forward to sharing what we learned with you at open house next week. See you then!
Lara Webb