Wheel of Fortune?

"Is Wheel of Fortune legit? In this lesson we’ll use percents, bar graphs & pie charts to compare the theoretical & experimental probabilities of the famous game show. After predicting how often we’d expect the wheel to land on each amount, we’ll watch an episode to see how often it really does. Is the show legit, or is something suspicious going on?" This resource uses the Wheel of Fortune to engage in problem solving for probability of a certain outcome.

Weblink address (URL):

Wheel of Fortune?

Standards & Objectives

Learning objectives:

Students will:

Use the Wheel of Fortune wheel to calculate how often each value should come up as a percent (theoretical probability)
Watch an episode of Wheel of Fortune to determine how often each value actually came up (experimental probability)
Create bar graph comparing theoretical vs. experimental probabilities, and discuss why they may be different
Discuss whether results indicate that Wheel of Fortune is rigged
Understand that a single episode (27 spins) is insufficient to definitely determine whether show is rigged

Lesson Variations

Blooms taxonomy level:

Understanding

References

Contributors:

Originator:

Ayers Institute for Learning & Innovation

eduToolbox® is a resource-sharing portal developed by the Ayers Institute for Learning & Innovation with collaborative support and funding from the Tennessee Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Education's Math & Science Partnership program.