Probably?

Working with new table mates to complete STEM Egg Drop Challenge

What is the theoretical probability that kids (and teachers) who had not had a five-day school week in forever would struggle to be excited about learning by a Friday?

That would be a 100%!

 To keep the kids engaged (and since it was time to switch the seating chart), we ended the first week with a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) challenge.  And, since we'd also just finished Easter break, it seemed logical to try the Egg Drop challenge.

Raw eggs ...

25 spring fevered eleven year olds ...

A recipe for SUCCESS!

Each group received the same materials with the following instructions:

Using any of the materials and as much or little as you like, create a device that will protect a raw egg being dropped from a height of 2m

Materials included 4 bendy straws, 3 popsicle sticks and 1m of tape (not pictured), a coffee filter, 1 Solo cup and 1 clear plastic cup, a sandwich size Ziploc bag, 1 rubber band and 2 paper clips.  All were contained in a brown paper lunch bag (which could also be used)

The teams were given a total of 20 minutes to design, build and test their devices.  I gave each team a plastic egg with which to practice.  The weight would not be the same but the size was pretty close.  Any adjustments to the device needed to be made within the time limit.  You can watch more of the process here.

Since the stage is approximately 1m from the floor, students simply rested their "drop hand" on the metre stick (2m) and let the device fall to the garbage bag-covered floor  below.

Probability of kids being entertained and engaged in communicating ideas, participating and collaborating with their new table mates?

That would be 100%!

Seems a good plan to attack probability in math while we were on a roll.

Is Rock, Paper, Scissors a fair game?  

Our results showed ROCK was most common after 2 trials.  Experiential probability is not far off from theoretically probability of 1 in 3 chances of winning.  We concluded that it is FAIR because each has something that it can beat (Rock beats scissors) and something that beats it (Rock is beaten by paper) and you have a choice of what to throw out.

Is 7 REALLY that lucky?
Students predicted what numbers they might roll (using 2 dice) with 12 rolls.  We realized it is IMPOSSIBLE to roll a 0 or a 1 since the lowest number possible is 2 (2 ones) and the highest is 12 (2 sixes).  We then collected data from the whole class for how many times each student rolled each number.  

The numbers in green are the number of combinations or chances you have of rolling  a number.  For example, you can roll a 7 with a 1+6,  2+5,  3+4,  4+3,  5+2,  6+1 (6 ways are the most chances of any number).  Our results showed that, on this day, 6 was actually the lucky number

We even "played" Lotto 649, using the winning numbers drawn on Wednesday night's draw.  This was an attempt to prove that the probability of winning the lottery is very UNLIKELY.  Someone even thought to check the OLG website to see if they had any data on the most and least common numbers chosen.

We wondered:

• Does where we live have any bearing on winning? (NO)
• How much does having 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 of the 6 numbers get the winner? (nothing, free ticket, $10, 9.5% of collected, 5% of collected)

We learned:

• 1 student out of 20 in our class accurately chose two numbers (5%)
• 8 students out of 20 accurately chose 1 number (40%)
• 11 out of 20 did not guess any numbers correctly (55%)
• 95% of the class would have "donated" $2 to the lottery with no reward

What are the chances that the students understood this strand of Math?

I HOPE that would be 100%!

~MissBrooks