“Mathematics is not about numbers, equations, computations, or algorithms: it is about
Understanding!” Ratio, Proportion and Probabilities are the mathematical principles that have their application in real-life situations or rather daily life chores. This activity will give
them an overview of these mathematical principles.
Introduction:
Comparison, relations and likelihood is something that this task will help them to grasp. It will also teach them the inter-relations between these concepts. This is something that children are introduced to later in their academics, but why not give them a gist of it now.
Ratios:
Ratios are used to compare values
They tell us how much of one thing there is compared to another
They are represented as: ratio form “a:b” or factor form “a/b”
The order of the items in a ratio is very important; whichever word came first in the ratio - when expressed in words, its number must come first in the ratio
Proportions:
Proportions are related to ratios in that they tell you when two ratios are equal to each other
The ratios are proportional if they divide into the same number
When things are proportional, they are also similar to each other, meaning that the only difference is the size
There are two kinds of proportionality: Directly Proportional and Inversely Proportional
Probability:
Probability of a given event is defined as the expected frequency of occurrence of the event among events of a like sort
The probability theory provides a means of getting an idea of the likelihood of occurrence of different events resulting from a random experiment
The probability is zero for an impossible event and one for an event which is certain to occur
Requirements:
Different Color Balls
Bags
Steps:
Cut a circle of radius 8 cm and make 8 equal portions of that circle
Separate 1 portion from the whole circle, it is the ratio of 1:8 or ⅛
Separate 4 portions from the whole circle, it is the ratio of 4:8 or 4/8
Cut a circle of radius 4 cm and make 8 equal portions of that circle
Since, the two circles of different sizes are divided into equal number of portions, that means the two circles are proportional to each other
On similar terms, when we have a whole pizza, divided into 8 equal slices, probability of eating one slice of pizza is 1:8 whereas eating three slices of the same pizza is 3*⅛ = 3/8
Learning Opportunity:
In this project, you learned how to use pizza slices and calculate ratio, proportions & probability. In real life, you will find its application everywhere. Ratios are heavily used in recipes and cooking, grocery shopping. Probability is used to predict and forecast.
