Single Event Probability

Advance preparation

Make a copy of "SINGLE EVENT PROBABILITY" for each of your students. Students will be working in pairs and each pair will need one coin (pennies will do).

Introduction

This lesson deals with single event probability. They will be guided through a series of questions to develop their understanding of single event probability. You may wish to work through the examples with your class or let the students try them without your aide.

In part B of this lesson students will need to work with a partner. You will need to total all of their tally values in a chart on the board so that the students will have a larger number of events to analyze. In question 6, students will be asked to compare fractions. If they have difficulty comparing the values, have them convert the fraction to decimals. Each student will be flipping a coin 50 times, so the classroom may become very noisy!

Student Objective

• Students will calculate single event probability.
• Students will conclude that experimental results of probability are a factor of the number of experiments.
• Students will conclude that an increased number of experiments yields results which more accurately approximate the theoretical values for probability.