Primarily Probability Activities

Activites for Calc-Based Probability Classes

Please feel free to download and use these activities in your classes. As part of this NSF project, these activities have been modified from activities created by Allan Rossman and Beth Chance (see the website http://www.rossmanchance.com/iscam/ for a description of their soon to be published textbook (August 2004). The activities below are in pdf format. You will need the Adobe Acrobat reader to read these documents. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or have any trouble downloading the material. If you use these activities, please keep the copyright information intact.

Below is a table of activities along with their descriptions. These activities were used in Dr. Lunsford's Fall 2002 and/or Spring 2003 Calculus-Based Probability and Statistics at Athens State University and/or her Spring 2004 Probability class at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. The materials were used along with the textbook Probability and Statistical Inference, 6th Edition by Hogg and Tanis, Prentice Hall, 2001. To see a sample of a class schedule which includes sections covered in the text and corresponding activities used, please click here. If you would like to see what she has done or is currently doing in her probability and statistics classes, please visit her website.

Activity Name	Concepts Covered	Scenarios in Activity	Materials Needed/Notes
Descriptive Stats Overview and A Brief Review of Set Operations and Properties	Quick reference for basic concepts in descriptive stats and set theory.		This is a set of two reference sheets for students and not actually an activity.
Probability & Equally Likely Sample Spaces (Random Babies)	Explores the meaning of probability and equally likely outcomes through physical and computer simulations. An introduction to the concepts of sample space, random variable, and expected value	Random Babies	Four index cards and one sheet of scratch paper per student group for the tactile simulation. It does not assume much familiarity with the software, Minitab. Note: Students will be shown how to create a Minitab macro in this lab. May also use the Virtual Laboratory Matching Applet instead of Minitab for the computer simulation.
Basic Concepts in Statistics and Probability Revised Activity for Spring 2003 Web-Based Version of Activity	Introduction to basic concepts in probability and statistics including randomness, probability and empirical distributions, the reasoning of statistical tests, p-values, and simulation as a tool. Revised activity rewords some questions and puts more emphasis on the p-value concept.	Friendly Observers I	Enough black and red playing cards for students to perform a tactile simulation. Minitab needed for the computer simulation.
Basic Probability Rules Revised Activity for Spring 2003 Answers to Revised Activity	Basic probability rules (does not include conditional probability). Revised activity rewords some questions. An answer key is also provided for the revised activity.	Top 100 Films I	No extra materials/software needed.
Hypergeometric Probabilities Revised Activity for Spring 2003	Applying Counting Techniques, Hypergeometric Probabilities. Revised activity adds a description of the "Ball & Urn" model and questions that involve using the Virtual Labs. Revised activity now ties together several concepts including counting techniques and rules of probability, empirical vs. theoretical probabilities, discrete random variables and their definitions and p-values.	College Committee Formation Friendly Observers II Ball and Urn Model with problem involving the Virtual Labs in Prob & Stat.	Mintab or a calculator can be used to compute the probabilities. Note: The student version (v12) of Minitab does not include the Hypergeometric Distribution.
Conditional Probability and the Law of Total Probability Revised Activity for Spring 2003 and Spring 2004	Conditional probability, independent events, the multiplication rule, the law of total probability. Revised activity adds more detail about the Top 100 Films Activity so that one need not do the Basic Probability Rules activity before this activity.	Top 100 Films II Graduate School Admissions Presidental Election Votes Weekend Weather	No extra materials/software needed.
Bayes’ Theorem	The law of total probability and Bayes’ Theorem	AIDS Testing Presidential Election Votes II Programming Bugs Multiple Choice Exams	No extra materials/software needed.
Mathematical Expectation Revised Activity that takes into account student version of Minitab limitations (used Spring 2003 and Spring 2004)	Mathematical Expectation for Discrete Random Variables	College Committee Formation II Roulette	Minitab needed for the Roulette Simulation. Note: The student version of Minitab (v12) will only handle 5000 entries per worksheet. One can also use the Virtual Labs Roulette Simulation instead of using Minitab to perform some of the computations.
Continuous Distributions	Fundamentals of Continuous Distributions: pdfs, cdfs, computing probabilities using pdfs and cdfs, expected value, variance.	Random Lunch Times	No special software needed although a package such as Maple would make some of the computations easier.
Normal Distributions	The normal distribution, the standard normal distribution, z-scores, computing probabilities and percentiles from normal distributions, the empirical rule.	Miscellaneous Measurements Birth Weights SAT vs. ACT Scores	Minitab Needed along with the Minitab worksheet: MiscMeasurements_Student
Sampling Distributions and Introduction to the Central Limit Theorem Modified version of activity that allows for in-class demonstration of Sampling Sim and treats the rest of the activity as a take-home assignment (used Spring 2004)	Random samples from populations, parameters, statistics, sampling distributions, empirical sampling distributions, the Central Limit Theorem.	Penny Ages Professor Lectures Overtime	Minitab Needed along with the Minitab worksheet: Pennies_Student Also uses the Sampling Sim program available on the Tools for Teaching and Assessing Statistical Inference website. For convenience, here is a zip file with the version of Sampling Sim used for this activity.
Central Limit Theorem Theory and Computations	The Central Limit Theorem; computations using the CLT.	Look at Coin Flipping, Polling, and revisit Penny Ages and Professor Lectures Overtime for CLT computations Selling Aircraft Communication Units	Tables, Minitab, or a calculator for doing Normal distribution computations.