Activity Overview
Students explore concepts in probability and statistics. In this activity, they model a situation to find experimental probability and construct a box-and-whisker plot. They compare the experimental and theoretical probabilities for the situation.
Before the Activity
See the attached PDF file for detailed instructions for this activity
Print pages 117 - 122 from the attached PDF file for your class
During the Activity
Distribute the pages to the class.
Follow the activity procedures:
Estimate the probability of exactly 25 out of 50 babies being girls
Use the RANDI function on the calculator to generate 1's and 2's randomly to represent girls and boys, and record the number of times the calculator "threw up" a girl in fifty trials
Find the experimental probability of exactly 25 out of 50 babies being girls
Use Pascal's triangle to determine the theoretical probability for exactly 25 boys and 25 girls
Construct a box-and-whisker plot for the data
Mark the minimum value, the first quartile, the median, the third quartile, and the maximum value on the plot
After the Activity
Students complete the Student Activity pages.
Review student results
As a class, discuss questions that appeared to be more challenging
Re-teach concepts as necessary