Content Area: Math

 

Index: 4.4B Grade 3 CPI 2

 

Standard: 4.4 - Data Analysis, Probability, and Discrete Mathematics

 

Strand: B - Probability

 

Cumulative Progress Indicator: 2 -  The student will predict probabilities in a variety of situations (e.g., given the number of items of each color in a bag, what is the probability that an item picked will have a particular color)

·        What students think will happen (intuitive)

·        Collect data and use that data to predict the probability (experimental)

 

Grade: 3

 

Sample Activities:

 

·        Second graders are presented with a bag in which they are told are marbles of two different colors, twice as many of one color as the other. They are asked to guess the probability for drawing each color if a single marble is drawn. Is this the same as flipping a coin? Will one color be picked more often than the other? The experiment is performed repeatedly and tallies are recorded. The chosen marble is returned to the bag each time before a new marble is drawn. The children discuss whether their estimates of the probabilities made sense in light of the outcome.

 

·        Students are told that a can contains ten beads, some red ones, some yellow ones, and some blue ones. They are asked to predict how many beads of each color are in the can. The students attempt to determine the answer by doing a statistical experiment. One at a time, each child in the class draws a bead, records the color with a class tally, and replaces it. At various times in the process, the teacher asks the children to return to their prediction to determine if they want to modify it.

 

·        As an informal assessment of the students' understanding of these concepts, they are presented with a bag in which they are told there are 10 yellow marbles and 2 blue ones. They are asked to predict what color marble they will pick out of the bag if they pick without looking, and about how many students in the class will pick a blue marble.

 

Sample Assessment Questions:

 

·        Orlando has a bag of 10 marbles that contains 4 red marbles and 6 blue marbles. If Orlando reached into the bag without looking and picked one marble, what is the probability that he would pick a blue marble?

o       A. 1/6 

o       B. 4/10

o       C. 6/10

o       D. 4/6 

 

The correct answer is C.