Classical Conversations Cycle 3 Week 20

Week 20: Candy Probability

Probability: the mathematical study of how likely a certain thing is to
happen.
- Tutor, hold up 4 candies, three of one color and one of
another. Tell the student our desired outcome is the color we
only have one of. What is our probability? (Answer: one in four.
We have one candy of our desired outcome out of 4 possible
outcomes.)
- If we wanted better chances of getting the color we like, how
should we change our total possible outcomes? (Answer: we
can make our chance 2 in 4, or 3 in 4 to have a higher chance
of our desired outcome)
Sampling: when scientists want to study a large group, but only have
time to study a small group, they use a sample population to make
predictions for the full population.
Application: If a doctor wants a picture of your health, they cannot
study every cell in your body. They may take a sample of your blood,
to give them a picture of the health of your whole body overall.
Purpose: Our purpose is to study a sample group of candy to make a
prediction on the full group of candy.
- Last week we knew the probability of tossing the coin and
getting our desired outcome was ½.
- Today we are going to try to conclude the probability of our
desired outcome by studying a sample group.
Hypothesis: Can we conclude how many total candies of each
color are in the bag, based on the probability results from our
sample population?
- We know that there is an uneven amount of each color
represented in the bag. Will our sample give an accurate
account for which color candies are the most and which are
the least?
- What do you think our sample of 25 candies tell us about the
100 candies in the bag?
Classical Conversations Cycle 3 Week 20

Materials: In this experiment of probability we will need:

- A distribution of candies that are uneven (but the actual
numbers are known to the tutor 60,30,10). Three different
colors.
- An opaque bag
- A chart to record the results.
Procedure:
- A student will remove one candy from the bag. Do not
return the candy to the bag. Keep it aside.
- The tutor will record the result of the candy selected as a
tally in each of the correct row in our result chart.
- Pass the bag to the next student, and continue as above
until 25 candies (one fourth of the total population) have
been selected.
- Convert your tally to a fraction number of the desired
outcome (each color specifically) over the total outcomes
(25 in our sample population).
Results: Sometimes we know the probability and use that to estimate
what our actual results will be, but sometimes we use our actual
results to estimate our probabilities.
- What was the number of each color candy that we drew
during our sample?
- Convert the sample fraction to a number out of 100 (multiply
numerator and denominator by 4).
- Tutor, reveal the actual number of each candy in the bag.
- Was our sample an adequate representation of the entire
population? Were we close?
Conclusion: A sample can give accurate information about a larger
group because of the principles of probability.
- Samples are used in many areas of study: science, polling
and surveys, production planning etc.
Classical Conversations Cycle 3 Week 20

Sample Result Chart:

Color 1____________________-

Color 2_____________________-

Color 3______________________-

Total of the sample Estimation of the Population

Color 1- __________ ____________
25 100

Color 2- ___________ _____________

25 100

Color 3- ___________ ______________

25 100