Curriculum  /  Math  /  7th Grade  /  Unit 8: Probability  /  Lesson 4

Probability

Lesson 4

Math

Unit 8

7th Grade

Lesson 4 of 9

Objective

Use probability to predict long-run frequencies.

Common Core Standards

Core Standards

  • 7.SP.C.6 — Approximate the probability of a chance event by collecting data on the chance process that produces it and observing its long-run relative frequency, and predict the approximate relative frequency given the probability. For example, when rolling a number cube 600 times, predict that a 3 or 6 would be rolled roughly 200 times, but probably not exactly 200 times.

Foundational Standards

  • 7.RP.A.3

Criteria for Success

  1. Use experimental and theoretical probabilities to make predictions of long-run frequencies or larger populations.
  2. Understand that long-run frequencies tend to approximate theoretical probability. 
  3. Understand that predictions are reasonable estimates and not exact measures.

Tips for Teachers

Students draw on their ratio and proportion reasoning skills to make predictions of long-run frequencies. This is a good opportunity to review or re-engage students in ratio reasoning skills from Units 1 and 5. 

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Anchor Problems

25-30 minutes

Problem 1

a.   Alexander flips a coin 3 times. It lands on heads 0 times. Do you think this is a fair coin? Explain why or why not.

b.   Alexander flips the same coin 100 times. It lands on heads 47 times. 

  1. Do you think this is a fair coin? Explain why or why not.
  2. If Alexander were to flip the coin 500 times, about how many times would you expect the coin to land on heads?

c.   Taylah flips a coin and creates the graph below to represent her results.

  1. Explain what the graph tells you about Taylah’s experiment. 
  2. Does it appear that Taylah used a fair coin? Explain your answer.

Guiding Questions

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Student Response

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References

Academo Statistics of Rolling Dice

Statistics of Rolling Dice is made available by Academo. © Academo.org 2016. Accessed April 5, 2018, 2:06 p.m..

EngageNY Mathematics Grade 7 Mathematics > Module 5 > Topic B > Lesson 8 — Image from Example 1e

Grade 7 Mathematics > Module 5 > Topic B > Lesson 8 of the New York State Common Core Mathematics Curriculum from EngageNY and Great Minds. © 2015 Great Minds. Licensed by EngageNY of the New York State Education Department under the CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US license. Accessed Dec. 2, 2016, 5:15 p.m..

Problem 2

On a game show, contestants spin a wheel to determine which game, of four options, they will play to win a prize. The games of the last several contestants are shown below.

Game Frequency
Guess the Price 16
Match the Brand 7
Throw the Darts 5
Race the Clock 12

About how many of the next 200 contestants do you expect will play Race the Clock? Explain your reasoning.

Guiding Questions

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Student Response

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Problem 3

A six-sided number cube includes the numbers 1, 3, 5, and 7, as shown below.

Han predicts that out of 150 rolls of the number cube, the number 1 will appear exactly 50 times. 

Do you agree with Han? Explain your reasoning.

Guiding Questions

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Student Response

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Problem Set

15-20 minutes

Give your students more opportunities to practice the skills in this lesson with a downloadable problem set aligned to the daily objective.

Target Task

5-10 minutes

A spinner with letters A through E is shown below.

About how many times will the spinner land on the letter A after 300 spins? Explain your reasoning.

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Student Response

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Additional Practice

The following resources include problems and activities aligned to the objective of the lesson that can be used for additional practice or to create your own problem set.

Next

Design and conduct simulations to model real-world situations.

Lesson 5
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Lesson Map

A7CB09C2-D12F-4F55-80DB-37298FF0A765

Topic A: Probability Models of Simple Events

Topic B: Probability Models of Compound Events

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