Park City Mathematics Institute
Data, Statistics, and Probability

Let 'Em Roll™ Simulation
by Matthew Carpenter, Jonathan Alder High School, Plain City, Ohio

Download:
    Activity Guide: MS Word || PDF
    Teacher Guide: MS Word || PDF
    Teacher Fathom Document: Fathom
    Student Guide: MS Word || PDF
    Student Fathom Document: Fathom

WHAT IS IT?
The teacher will explain and simulate the Let 'Em Roll™ game by using the Fathom software. To completely understand the Let 'Em Roll™ game, the teacher should first go through the teacher guide (Teacher Guide).

Starting off with the contestant having three rolls to win the car, each student will simulate playing the Let 'Em Roll™ game 5000 times by using the Fathom software. They will then repeat this process to find three more samples of size 5000. Using these four samples, each student will make an estimate for the theoretical probability. This entire process will be repeated assuming that the constant only has two rolls to win the car. Once the students have an estimate for each scenario, they will be guided through calculating the theoretical probabilities by hand. (Student Guide).

GRADE LEVEL/STRAND
Precalculus or AP Statistics

MATERIALS
    Computer with Fathom™ 2 software
    Copies of Student Guide

OBJECTIVES
The goal of this activity is to demonstrate a real world situation where the probabilities of mutually exclusive and independent events occur. Each student is asked to calculate the experimental and theoretical probabilities of these events. Students will also explore how probability changes based on a change in the real world situation.

Back to PCMI Resources for Teachers

_____________________________________
PCMI@MathForum Home || IAS/PCMI Home
_____________________________________

© 2001 - 2018 Park City Mathematics Institute
IAS/Park City Mathematics Institute is an outreach program of the Institute for Advanced Study, 1 Einstein Drive, Princeton, NJ 08540
Send questions or comments to: Suzanne Alejandre and Jim King

With program support provided by Math for America

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under DMS-0940733 and DMS-1441467. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.