This displays the Getting started on page 342.

This activity could lead on to your discussing how area and probability are related, and possible outcomes.

Ask students to share their answers with a partner or group and discuss, especially the patterns they draw themselves.

Students often ask why they need to know about probability.

Start a class discussion about who would need to know about probability for their job. Some ideas are:

insurance companies

engineers who design for earthquakes

government policy makers who make policies around building codes

casino owners

lotto designers

weather forecasters

This displays some pictures.

Start a class discussion based on the pictures about when knowing the probability of an event might be useful.

Examples:  A picture of lambs in the snow might spark students to suggest the importance of knowing the probability of a snowstorm during lambing.

This displays the instructions for three games.

This displays the instructions for one game, testing theoretical probability.

This displays photos of events and asks students to put them in order of likelihood.

For example:

You will eat lunch tomorrow.

The sun will rise tomorrow.

You will visit Parliament in the next month.

You will see lightning in the next month.

etc

This displays eight cards that you can print.

Hand out the cards to groups of 8 students in your class. Ask each group to put the events in order from most likely to least likely.

Have students stand in a long line with impossible at one end and certain at the other. Initially students are in any order.

They then decide with the student beside them which event on their cards is more likely and if necessary they swap places.

They then pair again etc until they are in order. (This is called “paired comparison”.)

Put twenty counters in a bag – say 13 of one colour, 5 of another and 2 of another.

Take five counters out and note their colour.

Ask students to predict, based on the sample of five, what colour the remaining 15 counters are.

Ask what they know for certain about the colours.

Keep those five counters out of the bag and take out five more.

Ask students to change their prediction and explain what they know for certain now.

Take another five counters out (now 15 counters have been removed from the bag) and repeat the questions.

Ask students what they learnt from this. They should answer that the larger the sample, the better the prediction they can make.

This displays a sheet of cut out clothes and a cut out doll for students to dress so they can see all the different combinations for 3 t-shirts and 3 pairs of shorts.

Ask questions such as:

How likely (very likely, likely, unlikely, very unlikely) is it that Fred will have a green or yellow t-shirt on? etc

As an alternative you could use the next page with cars and have students design them with the different wheels supplied.

Ask similar questions about the likelihood of a particular colour car having particular wheels etc.

Choose four different places where several students can stand in the classroom. Write “Go to ” on four pieces of paper and put the pieces of paper in a bag or hat.

Examples:

Go to the front of the classroom.

Go to the door.

In another bag or hat, have pieces of paper with these instructions:

Stand on one leg

Touch your nose with your right thumb

Turn and face the wall

Hold your left ear

Have one student take a piece of paper out of each bag and follow the instructions on both papers.

For example, they may have to go to the front of the classroom and stand on one leg. Return the student’s papers to the bags.

Repeat with each student until all are in position in their selected places.

Ask students what outcomes they can see. Write them on the whiteboard.

Ask students if all possible outcomes are written on the board. If not, what other outcomes would have been possible. Add these to the whiteboard.

Ask students if they can see a way to organise the outcomes so they know they haven’t missed any.

You could extend this by getting students to think up of four other places to stand and four other things to do. This time they do not have to perform the actions, just write down all the possible outcomes in an organised way.