What Can Education Learn from Real-World Communication of Risk and Uncertainty?

Probability is a difficult topic to teach, not least because it is rather unclear what it actually means. Modern risk communication has tackled general public incomprehension of probability statements by using the metaphor of ‘expected frequencies’ – for example, “of 100 people like you, we would expect 10 to have a heart attack or stroke in the next 10 years.” We show how these ideas can be taken into the classroom as the basis for teaching probability, using frequency tree diagrams as the fundamental representation. Empirical frequency trees can be used to summarise a series of classroom experiments, and then expected frequency trees naturally provide a basis for deriving the rules of probability, and make complex conditional probability calculations reasonably straightforward

Using Art To Teach Maths * Using Maths To Create Art

Abstract In recent years, there has been a move away from approaching topics such as number and algebra, shape and space, probability, and so on, as distinct units of work. Alternative approaches focus on the connections between different areas of maths, using a variety of techniques to explore these. The activities covered in this workshop can be used to give students experience across all these mathematical areas while also linking them to art, history, and other curriculum areas. Delegates will have hands-on experience of up to six different activities, which they will be able to explore at their own pace during the workshop. There will also be opportunities to discuss implications for classroom practice, and ways in which the ideas could be used and extended for students of different abilities and with varying interests