A statistic is a fact or piece of information that is expressed as a number or percentage. The facts and figures that are collected and examined for information on a given subject are statistics. Probability is the likelihood of something happening or being true. Teaching probability and statistics in the early years can be simple by presenting the students with chance situations and asking them to consider the chance of something occuring or not occuring (Marshall et al, 2006). There are various ways to embed probability and statistics in the classroom. However, it is important that the students understand the connection that the results can have with percentages in the upper primary grades. To represent this to the students graphs can be invented that show the students comparison and the percentage. This was demonstrated in the tutorial, as the Smartie, heads and tails and kite activities.
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| Smarties |
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| Data |
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| Spinner and kite |
Probability activity
Game of pig
Designed for two or more players, this game has players roll the dice as many times as wanted, keeping track of the total of the sums that come up on each roll. The catch is that if the player rolls a "1," the player's turn is ended, and the score for that turn returns to zero. If both dice reveal a "1," then the player's turn is ended and the accumulated total becomes zero.
After playing for awhile, students are asked about the chances of rolling too long and rolling a "1" or a double "1."
