Student questions about probability

After yesterday’s realization that I was directly the flow of learning too much in my class, I asked my students today to generate some questions they were interested in regarding probability. Here are their responses (posted also on the class blog at mrgrasley.wordpress.com).

1. What are the chances of winning the lottery?
2. What are the chances of finding a shiny Pokémon?
3. What are the chances of the earth being destroyed by an asteroid?
4. What are the odds it will snow tomorrow?
5. What are the chances of winning a car in Roll Up The Rim?
6. What are the chances of being “caller number 5” on a radio contest?
7. What are the chances of your seat being picked for the million-dollar shot at a basketball game?
8. What are the chances of being struck by lightning?
9. What are the chances of finding a $100 bill on the ground?
10. What are the chances of getting all red lights on the way to work?
11. What is the probability that a solar storm wipes out Earth’s electronics?
12. What are the odds of an average poker hand winning?

I’m proud of their questions. I can see that some of them will be very difficult to answer, and others fairly easy. All of them will require some thinking about possible outcomes or statistical probability (which we haven’t studied yet, so that’s pretty awesome).

Tomorrow we’re going to start trying to solve these questions. I’ll give the students the list, and we’ll start drumming up solutions in groups using chart paper to record thinking. I’m pretty excited; I hope they are too. There is a ton of excellent learning that can come out of this.