How do you like your toast?
5
Using chance to design investigations
In Session 4 pupils investigate making toast for themselves, using three spinners to provide the specification. This is one of a number of ways of using chance to provide the basis for investigations.
If there are a range of factors to be investigated or controlled, one way of deciding which children (or groups of children) will deal with which, is to let chance decide as in the case of using the spinners for Session 4. Or you can pull names from one hat and factors from another. You can also use dice by giving factors certain numbers and then rolling the dice to see which group gets which numbers. This adds an element of drama and humour to the proceedings.
You can also develop abler pupils understanding of chance by asking them to keep a record of the results of using chance. In the case of using the spinners they can think about the likelihood of a particular factor coming up. For example: for dark brown, pale brown and medium brown it should be 2 out of every 6 spins (or 1 in 3). They can compare this with how often a particular colour does come up in a sequence of spins.