Good ideas for Probability

The activities in this book from Polygon Resources focus on probability, but have links to other areas. Through the activities students are encouraged to develop their own games with appropriate time to work on them and test out their hypotheses.

Horse Race asks students to investigate whether this is a fair game.

Crossing the River involves students playing a game and then modifying it to determine whether it is now easier or harder to win and why.

21 Dice asks students to experiment with differently numbered dice to find the highest totals possible when the die is thrown and the numbers are added together.

Bingo encourages students to invent their own variation of the game by experimenting with other types and numbers of dice with appropriate bingo cards.

Snap involves students using a subset of cards from a full pack to play a game of snap, record their results then investigate what happens with different subsets.

Pinball Machine is an experiment to determine whether or not a particular pinball machine would produce a profit.

Roll a Penny is an experiment with grids of different sizes and the probability of achieving a desirable outcome.

• URL: http://stem.org.uk/rx7bt