The Deal or No Deal game is an ideal probability teaching tool for the classroom. Place one Money Card from the game inside a suitcase at random and give the suitcase to one pupil who will be the player of the game. Distribute the rest of the Money Cards to the remaining pupils. Ask the player to choose one classmate to open his Money Card and display the cash amount inside. Ask the player to perform this task twice more before you, "the banker," offer the player a random cash amount to leave the game. Ask your pupils to calculate the probability of the player winning more than the cash amount you have offered the player to leave the game. For example, if the offer is $100,000 and there are five remaining Money Cards containing a higher cash value than the bank offer, the probability can be calculated by dividing five by the remaining twenty Money Cards. In this case, the probability of the player winning more than the bank offer is 0.25 or 25 percent and the player should refuse the banker's offer. Repeat this process until the player accepts the banker's offer or takes the money left in the suitcase at the end of the game.
One-Die Toss is a game that allows pupils to place theoretical probability and experimental probability into context. Theoretical probability says that if a six-sided die is thrown six times, each of the six numbers will appear once. One-Die Toss demonstrates that when this theory is put into practice, the result is much more chaotic. Throw a die and ask each of your pupils to write down the result. Throw the die a second time and ask your pupils to add the second number on to the first and write that figure down. Throw the die a total of twenty times. Pupils can accumulate points until a "1" is thrown, at which point they lose all of their points. A pupil can choose to exit the game and retain their points at any time. At the end of twenty die throws the pupil with the most points will be declared the winner.
Adjustable Spinner is an online activity that allows pupils to measure probability according to the number of times a pointer is spun and how often it stops on the different sectors of a spinner. Ask your pupils to adjust the number and the size of the sections on the spinner to vary the probability outcomes. The probability results will be reflected in a table that measures both experimental and theoretical probabilities so students can compare the results of each setting after they spin.
Advanced Fire is an online activity designed to demonstrate how a fire would burn in a forest with varied set probabilities and forest sizes. Pupils should adjust each of the settings before burning the forest, since even slight changes in the probability, forest size and the location of the burn can dramatically alter the results. Ask your pupils to track the settings and analyze patterns from the "burn history" section of the activity.