Activity Overview
In this activity, students learn how to instruct the calculator to collect and organize the results from several trials of a simulation designed to find out how many boxes of cereals a customer would have to buy to collect all six color pens. Students enter a prewritten program, analyze the results of the simulation from the summary statistics and statistical plots.
Before the Activity
Study the program code and its explanation
See the attached PDF file for detailed instructions for this activity
Print pages 77 - 86 from the attached PDF file for your class
During the Activity
Distribute the pages to the class.
Follow the Activity procedures:
Download the program into the calculator
Download a copy of the program into other calculators using the link cables
Run the program, and enter the number of trials [≤ 99]
Observe the random numbers generated by the program, and understand that the program stores the data as a list
Sort the data in ascending order, record the minimum and maximum values, and determine the range
Produce and examine a list of statistics summarizing the information
Set up a histogram
Graph a box-and-whisker plot
Analyze the distribution of the data
After the Activity
Students complete the Questions sheet.
Review student results:
As a class, discuss questions that appeared to be more challenging
Re-teach concepts as necessary