Activity Description Create a game spinner with one to twelve sectors to look at experimental and theoretical probabilities. Parameters: Number of sectors, number of trials.

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Spinner

Place in mathematics curriculum:

This activity can be used to:

• introduce the notions of chance and probability
• show the difference between experimental and theoretical probability
• motivate the connection between probability and geometry

This activity allows the user to explore experimental and theoretical probabilities by adding and removing sections of a circle. This activity would work well in groups of two for about fifteen to twenty minutes if you use the exploration questions and ten minutes otherwise.

Preparations for this activity:

• give implicit directions on what they are to do. For example "Today we are going to experiment with the spinner applet and see how changing the number of sectors effects the chances that the sector will be landed on ..."
• answer the question "How do I figure out the measurement in degrees?"
• discuss the geometry of circles