Language of Probability

Thought I would post some helpful information in regards to the language of probability. Please remember to complete questions 1-5 of your homework!

Also, do not forget that you should be continuing to work on both your book talks and "Pear Island" assignment.

Language of Probability

In day to day life there are also many other places where the language of probability is also used.

• The chance of rain today is 75%. 
• A medication has an effectiveness of 90%
• 4 in 5 people agree that a particular brand of toothpaste is more effective than another.
• Most likely the supermarket would have the brand of milk I want to purchase.

A probability continuum is one way to visualise the scale of likelihoods.  

• CERTAIN is when something will definitely occur.  We assign a value of 1, or 100% to the probability of certain.  For example, if I were to roll a standard dice, it is certain that I will roll a number less than 10.   
• IMPOSSIBLE is when something can not occur.  We assign a value of 0, or 0% to the probability of impossible.  For example, if I were draw a card from a standard pack of playing cards, it is impossible that I would pull out a card with a 27 on it!
• Exactly half way along this continuum, we find the value of 1/2, or 50%.  We call this EVEN CHANCE, or EQUALLY LIKELY. For example, if I were toss a fair coin I could get a head or a tail.  Both of these have an even chance of occuring.  
• Anywhere between impossible and even chance (values between 0 and 50%) we call not likely, or unlikely.
• Anywhere between even chance and certain (values between 50% and 100%) we call likely.
• Between impossible or unlikely (0-25%) would be considered very unlikely
• Between 75-99.99% would be probable/very/highly likely

Experimental probability

Example: Travel Survey

92 people were asked how they got to work:

• 35 used a car
• 42 took public transport
• 8 rode a bicycle
• 7 walked

The Relative Frequencies (to 2 decimal places) are:

• Car: 35/92 = 0.38=38% of people responded they got to work by car.
• Public Transport: 42/92 = 0.46=46%
• Bicycle: 8/92 = 0.09=9%
• Walking: 7/92 = 0.08=8%

0.38+0.46+0.09+0.08 = 1.01

(It would be exactly 1 if we had used perfect accuracy),

Earth Day and Reminders

Earth Day

Our school will be participating in Earth Day celebrations and activities tomorrow afternoon. Activities will begin at 1:30 and include an assembly followed by a school cleanup. Please remember to wear green in support of our environmental protection goals.

Other Reminders

Math

Tree diagram worksheet, all odd questions (1, 3, 5, 7, 9)


Science

Grade 7 science questions on energy transfer, 1-3- due on Monday


Language

Book talk presentations begin on Monday for grade 7's and Wednesday for grade 6's. Students are being given a minimum of 50 minutes each day in class to work on their assignments and are also expected to work on their assignments at home. In order to accommodate for the time students are putting into this, I am attempting to minimize homework in other subject areas when possible so that students can focus on the completion of this fun yet challenging task.

Weekend Update

Happy weekend everybody! It was another week full of work and fun. I wanted to remind you all to make sure you complete your math homework (questions 1, 4-7, 11 and 12 of your rate worksheet) and to continue to work on your book talk presentations. You should all be at the point where you are working through your first graphic organizer. This will give you the time you need next week to plan and complete the presentation/creative component of your assignment. As I mentioned, please complete at least one full section of your graphic organizer for Monday.

Next week, we will be working hard to complete our health PSA's and will be working full throttle to complete our assembly skits and presentation. Thank you all for your thoughtfulness and enthusiasm in getting ready to host the character assembly. What we have come up with is meaningful and we should be excited to present our ideas on what fairness is with the school. 

Important Announcements

Cadence- Four Men, Four Microphones

On Wednesday,April 13th, 2016, the musical group Cadence will be coming to our school as part of our school arts' program. Cadence is an  Acapella music group meaning that all sounds they produce are created through voice. They will be here from about 9:00 am to 10:00 am. Here is brief video of what you might see and hear.

Music for Class

As promised, please listen to "Royal Crown March" located at this link. Use it to practice line 3 of the song prior to coming to class on Thursday

http://www.brucepearsonmusic.com/repertoire/collections/firstperf.shtml


Our Biography Book Talk Presentations

At this point in our project students should be close to finishing their biographies. Reading should be getting done both during class time and at home. As I stated prior, all students will get 5 full literacy blocks to work on reading their book and putting together their assignments.

Specifically for their summary, I have explained to students that it is very difficult to summarize a large amount of text at a time (for example, 100 pages) but easier if summarizing is done on a chapter to chapter basis. All students should track important information they find in their books as they read; not after they read. That will help them create a summary (not a recount) of their biography and the person they read about. Chunking their summary will allow for students to not have to re-read as much to identify important points.

Grade 6 students will have Wednesday to next Tuesday to get their assignment completed, while grade 7's will have the rest of this week. The reason for the difference in due date is because grade 6 students are working on EQAO related tasks today (Monday) and tomorrow which will take up most of their literacy time.


Math

There is math homework tonight on ratios for both grade 6 and 7 students. Complete question 2-6


There will be a quiz on Thursday of this week. Grade 6's will be quizzed on:

1) multiplying decimals
2) dividing decimals
3) Converting between decimals, fractions and percentages

Grade 7s will be quizzed on:
 1) Converting between decimals, fractions and percentages
2) Multiplying Fractions
3) BEDMAS/Order of Operations with fractions