Today in the math explorations workshop, the students went outside to play a variation on a game called "mother may I?" In the original game, a person is the mother and the rest of the players have to ask the mother if they can move from the starting line in a particular manner (walking, jumping, crawling, etc.) until one person makes it to the mother and the game starts all over again. In this version, the mother operated on a specific rule that the students had to figure out. Once they figured out the pattern it was much easier to win the game. The students returned inside and began talking about probability using the Interactivate coin toss applet. Afterwards, they learned about the Monty Hall problem, using an Interactivate applet to determine what their chances are of finding the prize behind the door.
After the break, Ian led them in an activity about game trees, which taught them about compounding probabilities. They broke up into groups and created their own game trees and figured out the probability that a person would make the right decisions in their attempt to make it from the beginning of the path to the end of the path. Then they talked about the differences and similarities of probabilities and statistics. They ended the workshop looking at more Interactivate applets entitled Chaos Theory and Fire!!