Watch the video for an introduction to the lesson.
What is probability?
Probability describes how likely something is to happen. We can describe probability using words, fractions, decimals or percentages.
Language of chance
When describing the chance that something could happen, we use words such as certain, likely, even chance, 50-50, unlikely, impossible.
Throwing Dice
When a single die (dice is plural) is thrown, there are six possible outcomes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
So, the sample space is {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}.
An event is one or more of the outcomes i.e. rolling a ‘5’ or rolling an ‘even number’ (2, 4, 6).
Watch the video “Unbelievable Highway Accident... enTire luck!”.
The probability of this event happening is = 0.0000001%.
If you had to describe this to your friends what are some words you could use to describe the chance of this happening?
Unbelievable Highway Accident... enTire luck!
Duration: 0.26
Use the Probability washing line interactive from the Transum website to explore ordering chance words.
To use the interactive click on the image to open the link in a new tab.
Drag the shirts onto the washing line so that the probability words are in order.
The words describing the lowest probability should be on the left and those describing the highest probability on the right.
Watch the video 'Weird but fair dice (Numberphile)'.
Design your own ‘weird’ dice.
Sketch your design and record the details of your dice in your exercise book or folder.
Below your design, answer the following question:
Would each number on your die be equally likely? Explain your reasoning.
Weird But Fair Dice (plus the D120) - Numberphile
Duration: 6:24
Complete the Best Dice activity from the Transum website to decide which die you would use to get the highest total after 100 games.
To see the activity, click on the image to open the link in a new tab.
Use the embedded “Which Spinners?” page from the NRICH Maths website to complete the following activity:
Read the information on the page about how the spinners work.
Initially the spinners are set on 4 sectors each and the game is set to ‘sum’ or add the numbers on the spinners.
Write down the sample space for the two spinners in your exercise book or folder.
Spin the spinners and observe the bar graphs that are produced.
Change the number of sectors on each spinner by using the slider underneath the spinner.
Write down the new sample space and observe what happens when you spin your new spinners.
Scroll down the embedded page until you find the eight bar graphs.
Create spinners that will produce the results indicated by each of the graphs. In your exercise book or folder, record the conditions you used to re-create each graph along with a rough sketch of the graph.
Complete the final challenge from the embedded "Which Spinners?" page.
Imagine you had 1-20 and 1-30 spinners. Describe in as much detail as you can what the relative frequency bar charts would look like for:
The sum of two 1-30 spinners
The difference between two 1-20 spinners
The sum of a 1-20 and a 1-30 spinner
The difference between a 1-20 and a 1-30 spinner
Try to provide a good explanation to convince us that your descriptions of the bar charts are correct.
Use some of the Geogebra applets on the Simulations of Coins and Dice page to observe different numbers of coins and dice being thrown. Notice which experiments have equally likely outcomes and which don’t.
In your exercise book or folder, try to explain why some events have higher or lower probabilities than others.
Don't forget to hand in the work you completed today!
Your teacher will have told you to do one of the following:
Upload any digital documents you created and any photos you took of your written work to your Learning Management system (MS Teams, Google Classroom for example).
Email any digital documents you created and any photos you took of your written work to your teacher.
Make sure you keep any hand written work you did in your exercise book or folder as your teacher may need to see these when you are back in class.
Let us know how you feel about this lesson.