Activity Name:” Healthy Fish”
What you need: Colored goldfish in a bag that will represent
either healthy or sick fish.
Once all your groups have the goldfish you than need to count
and see how many fish you have that are healthy or sick. The green ones are
sick and the other colors are healthy fish.
After counting how many fish you have, or in my classes’
case being told how many fish you have, you need to compute different kinds of
probabilities. Such as, computing “the probability that a fish in your sample
is healthy.”
When teaching and trying to understand probability it is so
much easier to actually have some kind of item, like goldfish, that you can
actually feel and move around. For me, it makes it so much less confusing!
CLICK HERE for a
great article explaining more about using goldfish for teaching probability.
CLICK HERE For
teaching younger students here is a great online game to help them better
understand probability.
Thanks for reading, and check back for more posts about different math concepts! :)
I really enjoyed this lesson in class. It really helped me understand the math problems that were on our homework for class. I also enjoyed the link that you gave of the lesson plan mixed with a science lesson. Math is one of my least favorite subjects. The best way for me to fully grasp a math lesson in to put into "my language" or connect it to something that I enjoy doing. This lesson would be great as a duo-lesson where you could teach science and a math lesson all in one. It would also help some of the students who are struggling (like me) to further understand it by putting it into a real life scenario. This will also help you as a teacher to answer that age old question of "why do I need to learn this?".
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that working with concrete objects helps in contextualizing the concept of probability. Hands on activities allow students to develop a deeper understanding of a concept compared to just hearing a lecture or reading from a book. I also like the game you inserted a link for. I liked the fact that I was able to paint the scene at the end. :)
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