Royalty Racing Pig

My article was from the journal Teaching Children Mathematics and was titled Royalty, Racing, and Rolling Pigs. The article discussed combining the GAISE standards with common core standards in the field of statistics, specifically within the topic of variability. The article was written by Randall E. Groth. In the article, Groth discussed three lessons that teach students about the concept of variability, all while addressing the common core standards. The first lesson Groth discusses deals with the topic of natural variability. Natural variability is “variability [that] is inherent in nature” (Groth 220). To teach this concept, Groth used the book How Big is a Foot? This book is about a king who tells his servant to build him a bed that is 3 feet wide and 6 feet wide. However, the servant does not know what a foot is and uses his own feet to measure for the bed. The king’s feet end up being larger, and the servant is thrown into jail, until he realizes that individuals’ feet are different. The servant uses the kings foot to measure and this becomes the …show more content…
When using induced variability one induces differences between two objects after performing an experiment or test on them. To teach the concept, Groth allowed his students to play the game “Pass the Pig”. In the game, students have to predict the possibility of a plastic pig landing in certain positions. After playing several round, students constructed a third line plot that compared their scores. Then, Groth modified the game by allowing the students to attach a bead to the pigs’ side. This made it more likely that the pig would land in positions that would increase the students’ scores. Students played several rounds like this and noticed that the scores did indeed increase. They created one last line plot that showed the increase in their scores. Once again, this activity clearly taught variability while still complying with national