Rock, Paper, Scissors!

I absolutely loved playing rock, paper, scissors in elementary school so when Roxanne (our college professor) told us yesterday that we were going to play it in class, I was so excited. I thought to myself, "oh I got this." We had to play 45 times in a row with a partner. I was awful at first! I couldn't concentrate on what to pick because I was keeping track of each round and counting 1, 2, 3 for when we would reveal our sign. So I blame my failure on the distractions. But as we kept playing, I got better! Over all, I won by 4 rounds! Woo Hoo! I am still a champion. On a side note, I actually played my dad later that day (winner got the cookies) I schooled him because of all of the extra practice! haha. Anyway, you are probably thinking "what does this have to do with math?" and it has everything to do with math! In this case, probability! We used this activity to find experimental probabilities and to make a tree diagram to calculate theoretical probabilities. Through experimental probability, we found that our game was very close to fair, but not perfectly fair because we almost had equal probabilities for the chances that I win, my partner wins, and a tie. (To be fair means that all the outcomes probabilities are equal). Through making a theoretical probability matrix, we found that this game is a fair game because the outcomes all have the same likelihood of happening. It was really fun to see that you can use probability for almost any game or activity!

I win!!

Rewind back to class

I want to talk about another activity we did in class last week (the day we used face cards for probability). Not only did we use the cards, but we also used Pom Poms to make tree diagrams. Pom Poms are like little fluffy balls- almost like a cotton ball. We used white and black ones. Man was that tricky! I am still a little confused with it, but I think I got it now?! Here is an example we had...

A box contains three white balls and two colored balls. A ball is drawn at random from the box and not replaced. Then a second ball is drawn from the box. Draw a tree diagram for this experiment and all possible outcomes. Find the probability that the two balls are different colors.

So above the problem is the diagram I drew. On the first draw you either get a black or white ball. Then on the second draw, it is the same outcome since you replaced the balls so you add that outcome to the first one (look at picture).  The cool thing I learned about tree-diagrams is that you can check your work! On each "<" sign, the probability of drawing each object on either side of it must equal one. For example, if you look at the first "<", the probability to get a white ball (3/5) and the probability to get a black ball (2/5) add to one when put together so you know you did it right! Now that we drew the tree-diagram, we have to find the probability that the two balls are different colors. On the side of the diagram, I drew all of the outcomes. So we find the outcomes that have one of each color. Then you have to multiply the probability of getting the first color to the second color to find the probability of getting both (follow the lines on the diagram to know what numbers to multiply). Then you add those two probabilities together! See it sounds really tricky right?! So HERE is a link in case you need more practice, like me! ;)

Probability Day 1

In math class yesterday, we started our first lesson on probability! instead of having a boring lecture on probability, we learned it through an activity. Normally, you would use goldfish for the activity, but we did not have any. Each group gets a baggy with a mixture of colorful goldfish. The green fish represent "sick fish" and any other color represents a "healthy fish." Then we had a worksheet that asked questions about the fish. My group had 37 "sick fish" and 11 "healthy fish." We had to find the probability that a fish in my sample would be healthy. Which would be the number of healthy fish I have over the total number of fish. (37/48) Some of the questions seemed tricky because I would over think them. For instance, one asked to add the probability of getting a "sick fish" plus the probability of getting a "healthy fish." So you would take 37 over 48 plus 11 over 48 and it would equal 48 over 48 or 1. Everyone would get the same answer to that question no matter how many fish they had. After we finished the fun activity we tried to complete the definitions on the back. It was amazing how much we understood because of the activity. I learned more from the activity than I would have in just a lecture. The best part about this activity is not only that it teaches probability, but you can give your kids a yummy snack when you finish it! ;)

This website also has many different fun games for children to play and to practice their probability skills. Click HERE to see!