Probability Unit #1 - Introduction/Cubes in a Bag Activity

Students were asked to tell me the first thing that came to mind when they see the word "Probability"

They came up with :
- luck
- chance
- percentage
- possibility

Next we talked about Games of Chance vs Skilled-based Games

Games of Chance (no skills or tricks required, based on luck e.g. lottery games, scratch cards, bingo etc.) vs Skilled-based Games (techniques and strategies can be learnt in order to master the game e,g chess)

Next, students were asked to do the following activity in groups:

Students' results from experiment

All the trials that were conducted in the entire class were recorded and added up.  In total, a record number of 926 trials were done!

Students made predictions about the number of colour cubes in each bag. These predictions were written on the board then the cubes were counted in front of the class to determine how close their predictions were. The guesses were very close!

After discovering that there were 14 cubes in each bag, I introduced the students  to the formula to calculate experimental probability. We did the first calculation together and the kiddies were amazed at how accurate the result was! (The answer was 6.92 and when rounded up it became 7 which was indeed the exact number of green cubes in each bag)

 I asked them if they thought the formula would work a second time. Some were a bit skeptical so I told them to do the calculations on their own. No surprise, the result once again was spot on! The kiddies got really excited and calculated the rest on their own, each time amazed by the accuracy of the result!