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The Confidence Game

Science and Children -- September 2006

Students are usually quick to draw conclusions about their surroundings. Their generalizations, however, are often based on a single experience or even a story recounted by a friend. As we gain more experience in the world, out ability to reason inductively improves. The ability to draw broad conclusions also improves with an understanding of likelihood and probability, and dice games are a popular way to introduce these concepts to students. One such game was developed after years of judging and discussing science-fair projects with students who had no understanding of why they should have repeated trials or treatments in their experiments. Intended for students in fourth through sixth grade, the game lets students discover why collecting repeated observations leads to greater confidence inf a conclusion. Rather than presenting the concepts of replication and certainty as facts, playing a game provides an engaging environment in which students discover these principles themselves.
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