To finish out most of our probability unit, I wanted to do something fun & interactive. What better way to do this then have students toss around an inflatable globe for a few minutes! The goal for the day was to determine how often you could expect a meteorite to hit land versus water. Students tossed the ball and another student would catch it. They would look at their right thumb and record if it was land or water. The groups did this until the ball was tossed 100 times. The kids loved to see how close they could get to the expected value of 70% water and 30% land. We calculated the probabilities and also looked at how likely it was to hit North America by using the areas of the continents. What a great review of Geometry as well!
At the end of the activity, I asked students if they liked it and why. One student said he loved it just because he got to play ball for a few minutes, which was expected. However, some students were saying things like "I never knew I could use Math, Social Studies, and Science all at once!" and "Today was really fun because of the globes but I loved how real-world it was!" I have just started asking students for feedback after activities and I highly recommend it! They are honest and if students can't enjoy or engage in an activity, then why torture them with it?! This helps me know what to keep for next year and what things I could find or create something better for.
Have you done something like this before in your classroom? I would love to hear about it!
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