What Sum Can I Roll?

Lesson Objective: Students will roll two dice with the calculator and keep a chart of their rolls to discover which sums come up most often and which come up less often.

Materials needed: 1 TI-73 for each pair of students
Chart of Numbers

Procedure: Show students how to roll two dice using the TI-73.

Pair students to work together on the task. After students understand the operation of the calculator distribute the tally chart for students to record their sums. Ask students to roll the dice 11 times and record their results with tally marks.

Bring the class back together to see if any one rolled all of the numbers from 2 through 12. Since most will not have accomplished this ask students to continue to roll the dice until they have at least one of each of the eleven results.

Students will not all be able to achieve the goal. If only a few pairs of students are missing a few numbers have those students share which numbers they are missing. (Most will miss either 2 or 12.) Have students write down the ways a sum of 2 can be rolled.

Have students write down the ways a sum of 12 can be rolled.

Have students write down how a 7 can be rolled.

Take time at the end of the lesson to discuss how these ways effect the results the students did get.

Think about which numbers the students were not able to roll.

Think about the numbers they would have to roll to get those results.

Think about what combinations gave the results that were achieved the most by every one.

At the end of the period, or the next class period have students complete a bar graph for their data.

Compare the various graphs to see what similarities there are between the graphs.

Combine the data from all the groups and make a class bar graph of everyone’s results.

Discuss how the class graph is similar and different from the individual graphs.