"Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes!"

Now it's time for us to play a little game of chance. Divide up into groups of three or four and each person pick two numbers from one to six (Note: it is okay for two people to "share" one number, but no two people should have the same two numbers).

Take turns and roll a six-sided die 50 times altogether. Each time one of a person's two rolls appears they score a point (regardless of who rolls the die). Keep track of each person's score on a data table. When you finish, make a bar chart of your results.

Make sure that you don't lose your scores, we will be using the again and again throughout these lessons. If you lose them, you will have to take the time to roll them all again and everyone will yell at you for wasting their time. You will become an outcast and the heavens will rain fire upon you... or something.

Here is a sample set of scores for students one, two, three and four:

Student 1: 15
Student 2: 18
Student 3: 17
Student 4: 19

Hint: If you have Microsoft Excel 3.0 (or a later version) on your computer, you can download these sample scores in an Excel 3.0 file and change the scores to fit your data. The Excel program will graph your data for you. Otherwise, pencil and paper will do just fine.

In this sample set, there is no mode. There is no score that occurs the most often. Would it be just as correct to say that all the scores are modes?

Now, continue to another example.

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send comments and questions to Jay Hill