Probability - Key Stage 4
This collection of resources supports the teaching of probability in secondary mathematics.
Here are some favourite activities selected by the NRICH team.
- Which Spinners? Can you work out which spinners were used to generate the frequency charts?
- Odds and Evens Made Fair In this follow-up to the problem Odds and Evens, we invite you to analyse a probability situation in order to find the general solution for a fair game.
- In a Box Chris and Jo put two red and four blue ribbons in a box. They each pick a ribbon from the box without looking. Jo wins if the two ribbons are the same colour. Is the game fair?
These are just a few of the activities on Handling Data that you can find on the NRICH curriculum pages.
The activities below, taken from the STEM Learning website, complement the NRICH activities above.
Using Probability Computer Games S3
This Standards Unit resource supports the use of each of the featured NRICH Key Stage 4 probability activities.
Students overcome misconceptions about probability, count equally likely outcomes using diagrams, discuss relationships between theoretical probabilities, observed outcomes and sample sizes and calculate probabilities of dependent and independent events.
There are some interactive simulations to use with students.
Statistics in Your World - Level 4
These materials are particularly useful in supporting the NRICH activity Odds and Evens Made Fair. The materials would most likely be used as a follow on activity.
The relevant unit is entitled ‘Testing’. It discusses the use of the breathalyser and mass radiography with the use of tree diagrams, ideas of conditional probability and the occurrence of errors. On completion of this unit students should have some appreciation of random selection, Type I and Type II errors, conditional probability, and have been introduced to the relationship: P(A|B) x P(B) = P(A n B).
Too Many Boys in the Family?
This CensusAtSchool resource investigates whether probability relates to reality.
Real data is contrasted with the theoretical probabilities of the number of boys in a family. Concepts covered include equally likely outcomes, combined events, tree diagrams, binomial distribution, theoretical and experimental probability.
