εpsilon talk

Musings on math and education. Made with love by the Washington Student Math Association.

WSMA Workshops: What are your chances?

WSMA held its 4th workshop this past Saturday, March 19th. The topic of the workshop was probability. The workshop involved a variety of activities: video, discussion, lecture, card game, and more.

The workshop started off with a TED-Ed video called “The last banana: A thought experiment in probability” by Leonardo Barichello.

Summary of the video according to the TED-Ed website:
Imagine a game played with two players and two dice: if the biggest number rolled is one, two, three, or four, player 1 wins. If the biggest number rolled is five or six, player 2 wins. Who has the best probability of winning the game? Leonardo Barichello explains how probability holds the answer to this seemingly counterintuitive puzzle.

After the video introduction, kids discussed the concepts presented. All the kids discussed their response to the video’s question and shared their reasoning.

Following this warm-up discussion, WSMA members presented a brief lesson plan on probability.

The presentation then turned into an interactive lesson. Kids volunteered to solve problems on the board and collaborated on worksheets.

The highlight of the workshop was a card game probability activity. Kids applied what they learned in the lesson to play the game Twenty-One. Using probability, they explained how they made their moves. Even kids who didn’t know how to play before became skilled players!

Here’s some input on the event from one of the WSMA organizers, Alex Shang (he wears the blue WSMA t-shirt in the photos):

“I was really impressed by the kids’ abilities to rapidly implement the skills which they’ve just learned to a card game. I asked the kids to explain the logic behind their moves, and they were thinking on an extremely complex level. I think that this workshop was a great success because the kids had a ton of fun while learning fundamental probability concepts and permutation.”

Overall, we had a great time interacting with the kids and watching them learn during this workshop. We hope to see you at the next one later in April! Stay tuned for more updates.