In this activity, students revisit the idea of simulating real-life situations with chance experiments. In the next activity, they will design and run their own simulations for situations that involve multiple steps. Here, students are asked to use their understanding of experiments that have multiple steps to simulate a single part of a larger simulation: They flip two coins to represent a single offspring from a pair of mice. Since the outcome probabilities of the simulation and the real-life situation are the same, this is another option for creating simulations that represent real-life scenarios (MP4).

The purpose of the discussion is for students to articulate why the simulation is appropriate and think about other methods of simulating the same situation.

Consider asking these questions for discussion:

• “How could we get a better estimate than what you got in your group?” (Repeat the experiment many more times or combine the data from the class.)
• Collect data from the class to find a better estimate. “What is the probability using the class data?” (Answers vary. For reference, the actual probability is .)
• “Notice that we used a two-part experiment (flipping two coins) to represent a single thing (one offspring). Why was this OK to do?” (The probability of getting HH on two coins is the same as the probability of getting a single offspring with white fur.)
• “Can you think of another method that would work to simulate a single offspring?” (We could use a spinner with 25% of the circle labeled “white” and 75% labeled “brown,” or one white block and three brown blocks in a bag.)

In this activity, each group is assigned a situation for which they will design and perform a simulation to estimate the probability. Students will give a short presentation on the methods and results of their simulation for the class after they have designed and run the simulation. Students will need to attend to precision (MP6) for the simulation method they chose. At this stage, students have experienced a large number of simulation methods and should be able to design their own to represent the situations using the appropriate tools (MP5).

Ask each group to share their situation, their method of simulating the situation, and their results. Students should explain why their chosen method works to simulate the situation they were given. In particular, all important outcomes should be represented with the same probability as stated in the situation.

If all groups that have the same situation use the same simulation method, ask for ideas from the class about alternate methods that could be used for the situation.

For reference, the computed probabilities for each situation are:

Conclude the discussion by inviting 2–3 students to share a norm they identified in action. Provide this sentence frame to help students organize their thoughts in a clear, precise way:

• “I noticed our norm “” in action today and it really helped me/my group because .”