Unit 8, Lesson 6
Estimating Probabilities Using Simulation
Grade 7
Preparation
Lesson Narrative
This lesson introduces the idea of simulation. Groups of students use and create different simulations, chance experiments that are designed to approximate the probability of a real-world event.
Students build on their work with calculating relative frequencies of experiments to calculate frequencies using a simulation. In this lesson, the outcomes students are tracking are from an experiment designed to represent the outcome of some other experiment that would be harder to study directly. Students see that a simulation depends on the experiment used in the simulation being a reasonable stand-in for the actual experiment of interest (MP4).
- Comprehend that the term “simulation” (in written and spoken language) refers to a chance experiment used to represent a real-world situation.
- Describe (orally and in writing) a simple chance experiment that could be used to simulate a real-world event.
- Perform a simulation, and use the results to estimate the probability of a simple event in a real-world situation (using words and other representations).
Let’s simulate real-world situations.
Required Materials
Activity 2
Required Preparation
Provide each group of 3 supplies for 1 type of simulation: choosing a situation slip from a bag, spinning a spinner, or rolling 2 number cubes. The supplies for the simulations include:
- a paper bag containing a set of slips cut from the blackline master
- a spinner cut from the blackline master, a pencil, and a paper clip
- 2 standard number cubes
A simulation is an experiment that is used to estimate the probability of a real-world event.
Suppose the weather forecast says there is a 25% chance of rain. This situation can be simulated with a spinner that has four equal sections. If the spinner stops on red, it represents rain. If the spinner stops on any other color, it represents no rain.
A circular spinner divided into 4 equal parts. The top left section is red and labeled “R.” The top right section is blue and labeled “B.” The bottom right section is green and labeled “G.” The bottom left section is yellow and labeled “Y.” The spinner dial points to the section labeled "G."